Maybe it’s 9? Whatever. A month and a half ago, with next to no warning, which I thought was pretty cool, Chel Owens alerted me that she was in the area!

So we took a hike.

We had a fun time chatting like old friends, as blog buddies always are, and traipsed along an ocean lagoon with our husbands and sons.

Chel later bought my novel, which I mailed to her, autographed, of course.

Not to worry, Chel. I’ll have copies of Wish You Were Here soon!

*Pictures courtesy of Chel Owens. Captions courtesy of Yours Truly, but I’m pretty sure they’re accurate.

P.S. Fun fact: when looking up the link for the sequel, I discovered Wish I Was Here has been translated for Kindle not just into Spanish, German, and French, but Italian and Portuguese as well. Who knew? Not me until now. And now you, oh fortunate ones!

As if meeting a blog buddy weren’t enough of a birthday month joy…

Ju-Lyn, my blog buddy in Singapore, remembered her birthday month twin and wished me well. (So thoughtful of her.)

And a local friend who has a long-standing record of the most random birthday gifts, gave me…

Oh, but she isn’t finished yet.

But, she truly outdid herself with this next one:

What’s going on in the background there, you may ask. This same woman held a baby shower for her daughter. One of the shower games was to guess how many peanut M&Ms were in a large jar. I missed it by four. Peanut M&Ms are my favorite, so you darn betcha I was going to win that jar!

Once the candy was gone, I suggested we use the container as a family gratitude jar. We each had a color of paper assigned to us. By my birthday, the jar was full, so I declared one of my gifts would be going through our slips of paper and sharing some of the things we were grateful for. It was a fun family bonding experience. The jar is being refilled now.

The next night, I went to Chili’s with some Jiu-Jitsu ladies. Here I did get cake.

Ever one to try new things, I believe this was a … shoot, guava? Something wild margarita. I think guava. It was delicious. That’s also the first time I’ve used a shaker. (I know, Mark. I know. I’m supremely lame. You’re too nice to say it, but I hear you thinking it.)

Oh yes, and among the birthday gifts from Hubby…

A lock picking set… because… I aspire to be a thief? I’m not sure, but it seemed like a fun idea to learn this skill. If my son gets his hands on this, I can see him getting into mischief. Why might I think that?

My son…

Now I’ve gotten you caught up on two big things. Stay tuned for more. Thanks for reading.

Which gift above did you like the most?

Last Q: Although once legal, the “fake to third, throw to first pickoff” move has since 2013 been classified as “balk.”

New Q: The 16th- to 18th-century Safavid Empire ruled over what today is this nation.

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