what birthdays are about

It starts the night before your birthday, (or, for those of you like me, weeks before) that tingling sensation that goes shooting up your back when ever you start thinking about your birthday or when someone else even happens to mention it. It is almost more then some of us can bear...

You wake up hours before everyone else and then proceed to lay in bed waiting, waiting til everyone else wakes up, waiting for them to call to you and say " you can come down stairs now". As you wait you can smell the mouthwatering aromas of your specially requested birthday breakfast being cooked downstairs. As you wait you can hear the rushing of feet as last minute preparations are made and the hushed whispers as well as the stifled giggles from a few of those who can hardly stand the wait as much as you can. And as you wait, that tingling sensation gets worse as the seconds go by....


Then the call finally comes and you rush downstairs, breathless, amid the shouts of "Happy Birthday" and a very loud, yet trying very hard not to sound off key, version of Happy Birthday being song..... Your Birthday has now begun.

Paper ripping ...



silence because words just are not enough when you have realized you got "just what you wanted"....

new red shoes...

and the traditional ' Dad with birthday girl" picture...

Happy Birthday Anneke! You will always be our favorite Duck!