Living on the east coast since her UCONN days, daughter Amy has made celebrating every one of our granddaughter's Emma's birthdays in person a high priority.
For the first time ever, Julie and I were there too. Emma's other grandparents, Z and Ria, drove in from New York for the occasion.
Emma had a sleepover party with friends to celebrate another girl's birthday the night before, but she was bright and chipper by the time all of her family visitors arrived at her place.
We enjoyed another beautiful, delicious cake, this time made by Gina and Amy with a little dancing in the kitchen by Amy and me to put the proper air spin on batter churning round in the mixer. I thought I recorded a video of another stirring rendition of everyone singing the birthday song, but apparently I just captured a picture of Amy and Gina blowing out matches as the music begins followed by a snippet of Amy clapping while Emma turns at the conclusion of the song.
In any case, we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon with Gina, Laszlo, their fantastic daughter Emma and, as they say on Gilligan's island, the rest. There was a taco salad feast that evening, followed by a very strange, competitive game of Tripoley. We had seven strategic players vying for the Undisputed World Championship of Tripoley, and that resulted in some very weird situations as we stopped each other from collecting on winning hearts by directing play to other suits until it was too late. No less than three times, one of us had the King-Queen of Hearts (which devoted fans of the World Series of Tripoley will know piles up with chips and can change the course of a game) and didn't have the opportunity to collect by playing the combo. Not only that, but the compartments for 10, Jack and Queen of Hearts had so many chips that had not been reaped each round that they also overflowed trays that should easily hold at least three rounds, even with seven players.
Several times, players borrowed chips to be able to make one final ante or to buy a new hand or make a bet on the poker round in last gasp effort, with the result being a big win of one of those huge piles of chips to stay in another round. Sometimes, a good round was enough to take a player from almost bankrupt into second place.
Yes, the worldwide press is calling it the championship match for the century, and while some of us found ourselves too sleepy to finish the game, we could all agree that Gina and Emma gleaned the most chips among the final round survivors. In China, they said, "Nying wu choo now sukiyaki." or at least that's what I think the reporter exclaimed excitedly at the conclusion of play. We had such a nice time, we decided to have a double version of what is becoming one of our go-to Sunday family meals, pork roast --- this time there were two, with one Texas bbq and the other Tuscan seasoned --- plus both vegetarian and ham-enhanced barbecue beans and several assorted veggies. Once again, it was delicious, as evidenced by the sparse leftovers.
We managed to take long strolls through our lovely neighborhoods on both days to work off some of the huge calorie intake of celebrating. Amy also joined us at church on Sunday, which is always a nice treat for Julie and me when family joins us.
Before Amy drove in on Saturday morning, Julie and I took a walk by the neighborhood golf course, where an LPGA Tour held the Curtis Cup match, which while overshadowed by the World Championship of Tripoley nonetheless had a pretty decent turnout and gives us an excuse to share photos of the exclusive member's only Merion Golf Course.
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