Happy Birthday to my Dad!

Yesterday was my Dad's birthday. He is now officially 70 years old! Pretty amazing feat for a man who had Polio as a child, had his appendix burst, was run over my a monumental piece of machinery called a disc (the one with the round blades in the front that tear up ashpalt? Yeah, that), had 2 heart attacks, is diabetic, and has worked non-stop since he was a mere child. But then, he's kinda amazing himself.

My mom and I made him a delicious birthday cake...the base of the cake was the Hershey's Deep Dark Chocolate cake, one of my favorite recipes. Then Ma baked a small square and a round pan of white cake, out of which we cut a 7 and a 0...I'm sure you can guess where we were going, yeah? I frosted the chocolate layer, then we put the 70 on top, and poured a vanilla glaze over that...and because we're such rebels, we decorated the numbers with dragees. Anyone who doesn't understand that, google dragees and California. :)

Dinner was kind of a mixed grill. We had crab, grilled shrimp, fried shrimp (breaded with panko), steak and pork chops. For sides, yellow beans, asparagus, and baked potatoes, done on the grill so the skin was nice and crispy. Delicious, for certain! I would have loved to have gotten pics to show you fine people, but, alas, I did not remember to get my camera off the charger before I left in the morning :(

I will show you part of my present for him, though. It's a graphite sketch of my parents about 33 years ago that I did. I finished it, matted and framed it before wrapping it with gift wrap, but this will give you a rough idea of how it looks. And yes, he really DID look like Conway Twitty, and yes, my mom really IS a hottie :)