It's Bridgette, the Birthday Bunny:

For about a second and a half, which was about how long she permitted the bunny ears to remain on.

So long as she was going to be here, Don and I figured we'd go ahead and give her her presents:

Of course, what did she prefer to play with?

Right.  An empty sack.  Never fails.

It's astonishing how much they change in the space of one short year, isn't it? 

Tony_retiring, originally uploaded by Anne_G_Ivy.

For more years than I can count Tony has been a cheerful, smiling face at the Arlington Heights post office. Today when I went in to send off Faith's birthday package (alright, it's late...so what else is new?) there was Tony with balloons, cake, and a card at the counter for us to sign.

It's not going to be the same place without you, Tony.

He's going to be driving for Meals on Wheels, taking his father to medical appointments, and going on some mission trips, so while he's retiring from the post office, his happy disposition will be a blessing to many others.

God bless you, Tony! It's been a pleasure, dear sir.

Here I am @ TCU for the Howdy week show w/ CNAR. Oldest person here. Surrounded by literally hundreds of college kids!  Auntie Em!  Auntie Em! 

It was fun, though.  We - Dmitry, Carolyn and I - were there to see "Uncle Joey" from "Full House", and most importantly, his opening act, the improvisational group, Curtis Needs a Ride. 

From left to right are Flu, Steve, Austin, and Grayson.

Bless their hearts, the opening segment turned out to be tough as nails, with Steve supposing to guess from the clues put forth by the others: salt and battery, Reykjavik (the capital of Iceland), and Catherine Zeta-Jones.  Normally Steve can figure them out fairly quickly, but not this time. 

That's what makes it fun, I'm sure. 

After their performance appeared Dave Coulier:

He was very amusing, indeed, at one point having me laugh so hard I was in stitches, gasping for breath.  Dmitry and Carolyn laughed like loons, too.  Dmitry was most impressed by his facility at various voices and foreign accents; I was impressed by his skill with a harmonica:

It was also a pleasure to learn of his newest endeavor, which is a show for Fox, from the producers of "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?", called "Clean Comedy" or something like that.  Coulier does not rely on foul language for his humor (though some of the humor was a bit crude for my taste, but I'm a fuddy-duddy) , and the premise of the show is he challenges foul-mouthed comedians to see if they can pull off a funny comedy routine without using those words.  He said look for it sometime next year. ;^)

Don and I are watching FoodTV's "Unwrapped", which shows how various food items are made.

One segment just completed was about those itty-bitty "baby" carrots so popular now.  Notice the quotation marks.  They are there for a reason.

Turns out those are actually ordinary, full-grown carrots cut down and polished!  Nothing "baby" about them. 

I think that's flat-out dishonest. 

Dmitry_card, originally uploaded by Anne_G_Ivy.

Dmitry's birthday presents showed up today, and as usual, it was rather a mixed bag of goodies. What amused me considerably is the disparity between one of the gifts - i.e. a silver hip flask, since the legal drinking age in Russia is 18 - and the enclosed card. How often is a card with a ducky paired with a hip flask? ;^p

The end of August is a popular time to get hitched, t'would appear, as there was a wedding in the main sanctuary at 6 p.m. with another on the other end of the campus in the small sanctuary at 7 p.m.

All three of the church's wedding directors were on duty, which is no surprise.  I was called in a few days ago to stand outside and make sure those for the 7 p.m. wedding didn't accidentally get entangled with the 6 p.m. wedding.  It made for a long, hot afternoon and early evening, but by golly, I shooed the photographer, one of the musicians, and a few guests over to the west.

The 6 p.m. wedding included an elegant, catered reception afterward, with the buffet set up in the Garden Room, and tables set up in the Great Room and upstairs on the mezzanine:

My apologies for the above photo's fuzziness...I had the flash suppressed, it turned out. You can just see the sanctuary there in the back, with the candelabras lit.  Black-and-white has certainly turned into a popular color theme for weddings these days, BTW.  I've seen a couple of sets of bridesmaids decked out in black gowns.  What I loved were the cakes!

The photo doesn't do the bride's cake justice, but take my word for it...it was exquisite.  And check out the groom's cake:

It's plain the groom is an avid golfer, what with the golf cart on top plus the personalized balls and tees to be given as favors, and the discs show he went to Texas Tech ("Git yer guns up!"), I can't recall where he works but there's its logo, and he's a fan of the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Cowboys.  ;^)

I fear it rather overpowered the bride's cake, which while beautiful, didn't have a single golf ball or personalized disc anywhere in sight.

Oh, and the trend continues unabated...two brides, two strapless wedding gowns. 

Was just at SuperTarget and saw this new offering:

Almost five bucks but the purchaser is expected to provide ground beef and tomatoes for the chili, and chicken and cream of chicken soup for the chicken and rice meal?

What, precisely, is it that is left for the package to provide?  Some seasonings and perhaps beans for the chili, and rice for the other?

$4.89 strikes me as awfully pricey for that. 

(Sorry about the less-than-stellar quality....it arrived as a cellphone video.)

Actually, though, I'm going to start with a couple of photos from Friday, when we had Brianna and Bridgette over for a few hours, due to poor Jessica having a splinter or something in her eye:

Jessica's eye is much better, BTW.  ;^)  Okay, on to this afternoon's festivities, where delighted shouts of "Bridgette!  Bridgette!" were heard from Kirstin's children when they realized Jessica and her family had arrived:

Second only to Bridgette as an attraction was Max, whom Dmitry obligingly brought out as Joe was getting ready to go to work:

It's hard to tell who's more fond of whom....Max of the children, or the children of Max. 

Of course, the real star of the party was Dmitry:

Here's Jeanne showing the children some of the photos she'd taken, followed by her teaching Bryson some of the finer points of digital photography:

And lastly, a picture of Don with Bridgette just because I like it:

It was a very nice party, and we surely appreciate all those who drove in for it!