Celebrating Summer Birthdays

(This is my last family birthday post.  I promise.... for this year anyway... unless I forget.)

We have six summer birthdays in our family.  This year we decided to consolidate and celebrate them all at once on Sunday.  I used to do this with my class before we parted for the summer vacation because I really did understand how sad it was not to have your birthday acknowledged during the school year.  The parents went all out and our celebrations used to be pretty incredible.

It was incredible that we were able to actually find a date when every birthday person was able to come despite their busy work and school schedules.

We started the day before cutting all the burdock roots to make kinpira gobo which everybody loves.



Then on Sunday, mom made the namasu (pickled cucumbers) and the Hawaii staple, macaroni salad.

I marinaded the red peppers, teriyaki beef and chicken for Art to grill.  I knew I'd packaged zucchinis for purchase also and searched everywhere for it.  Art checked the receipt and said it wasn't listed.  Uh oh...  This means somebody else has the bag of zucchinis that I placed in their shopping cart by mistake.  Yikes!

Everybody brought their wonderful specialties to add to the feast.




Cody is Mom's youngest grandchild.  He's also the tallest and does dwarf Mom when he stands next to her.

She's always telling him that he's grown even taller.

Everything was fabulous and everybody was able to bring home a lot of left overs which we love.  My sister-in-law, Nancy made the scrumptious chocolate bundt cake.  We had four candles to celebrate the birthdays of the people who were in attendance.

The birthday people are Miho (my nephew's wife),  Dennis (my brother), Art and me.  My son, Jon and his Sarah were not here since they are in Bangladesh and Gabon, but they were in our hearts.

Who knows?  Maybe they can come next year and add their candles to our cake also.  That's my birthday wish.