yes, it's a Blogger problem

My blog was blank this morning - eeeek -- clearly a Blogger problem which now seems to have been cleared up. Nevertheless, Blogger is still being ornery as I write. Saturday night was great fun -- it was just the best to have all of our kids together (minus our daughter-in-law Lesli, whom we missed - but the kids just had too much going on). My camera was misbehaving and took a fuzzy picture of the whole group, so I am not going to post it. But here I am with the Birthday Boy, who was in the middle of talking when the picture was snapped. Argh. After dinner, instead of coming back here to chat, the kids opted to retire to the lounge at the restaurant, so we hung out there and that's where they gave him his gifts (and we all had a few after dinner drinks). For somebody who doesn't NEED anything, he lucked out on the creative gifts he got. Did I mention that I got him 12 lbs of marble nut halvah? I figured it would be a year's worth but of course, he has already gone through a pound and a half in less than a week. Big surprise. The children got him a generous gift certificate to Lord & Taylor so now he has to go shopping for some new clothes that he ordinarily would not think to do. They also bought him a Kindle so he would find it easier to read -- we are waiting for the new model to arrive. What a terrific gift! And they got him an electronic photo album for his desk in the office, loaded with wonderful pictures of all of them, of us, and the grandkids. I can add more as we go along. Yesterday was back to real life: paying bills and visiting my mother. I was too tired to post last night and haven't had my coffee yet this morning, so I'm off to start the day: watching the the thundering herds of turkeys on a rampage through the woods (although they are too far away to see very clearly in this picture) paying more bills, going to the bank and then I hope, this afternoon, the studio. I'll post tonight, perhaps with more interesting pictures. Hope springs eternal.