Happy Birthday, Sweetie (and goodbye, vacation...)

Happy Birthday, dear Terri! Today is Terri's birthday. We celebrated by sleeping in as long as we could, until the kitties couldn't take it any more and relentlessly campaigned for breakfast. Actually just the one kitty, Cleo. She's a bit demanding.

Tea in bed, plus presents. I got Terri a bunch of warm clothes for winter, plus a few fun things thrown in for birthday cheer. Since she is doing miraculously well for this, Day 11 of vacation, we decided to go out for a bit to celebrate the fantastic fact that she is here on earth!

We did a little shopping, then over to Berkeley for an indulgence of our new obsession: Ici ice cream. We do live in one of the foodie meccas of the country, so of course we have fantastic fancy ice cream shops. We mean to try them all, but this is the one we're focused on right now. I can't get enough of their burnt caramel ice cream. Terri loves their chocolate. I also had a scoop of amazing candied Meyer lemon ice cream that was pretty awesome.

Then we headed over to Dark Carnival to browse for a bit. Didn't buy anything, although we were tempted. We have plenty of books and a big library. But oh, this bookstore is dangerous.

It's in a really pretty part of Berkeley. It was so lovely today, low 70s, sunny, perfect early-fall weather.

Then we headed to the movie store to get some videos, and some of Terri's favorite pasta sauce for dinner, and a berry pie for dessert. Nope, I didn't make anything for dessert. We were going to have s'mores roasted in our own fireplace, but after the ice cream, s'mores sounded WAY too sweet. So we're having pie. Much better, right? Right.

***

It's been a lovely vacation. Lots of little luxuries and indulgences, lots of sleeping and reading and doing nothing, lots of meandering drives around the East Bay. I've been so impressed with how Terri's held up, because we were out almost every day, with just a few exceptions. We're both kind of worn out from all this 'play' and although I will miss being home, I'm ready to get back into a normal routine. We didn't do most of our normal chores so the house needs cleaning, the laundry needs doing, the bed needs changing, etc. I'm sure by the end of next weekend we'll be all put back together, back in frugal mode (sort of took a vacation from that, as well), ready for to enjoy fall.

Oh, here are a couple of shots from the dog park, Point Isabel. Love those doggies. And the beautiful scenery we are blessed with here in the Bay Area.