I had a birthday on Saturday, inching just a bit closer to the half century mark. It was a nice, low-key birthday spent with the family at home for the most part. The Scientist took me out for lunch at a Vietnamese-Thai restaurant near us and it was a very nice meal although I struggled to finish my meal of pad thai. What a contrast to our first visit when we ate several courses without any trouble. :) I was given a couple gifts by the Scientist and the boys: a Wii U version of Scribblenauts unlimited and a mini lighted photo studio. I hadn’t played Scribblenauts before but it was quite a bit of fun once I started to get the hang of it. My MIL came around in the late afternoon with a vegetarian cookery book and a scarf for me and stayed for awhile to join us for cake. The Scientist baked a Devil’s food cake with chocolate frosting, compliments of Duncan Hines. The cake was quite nice but the frosting was a lot sweeter than we expected. DH has only just started selling their products here and they seem to be not much more than imports even though they are cheaper than the Betty Crocker that has been sold here for years. (Maybe it’s cheaper to import the US version rather than produce it here?) The Scientist added Malteasers to the cake, which tasted quite nice.

During the evening, I wanted to pay a board game with the family and briefly considered asking them to play Agricola. We’ve played that one time but nobody has wanted to play since. It was quite expensive and took quite a bit of effort to obtain so I’d have liked to give it another chance. But the time required for set up and re-learning it was too great to invest with what little was left of the day. Instead we played Ticket to Ride Europe and had a great time. Afterwards we watched To Kill a Mockingbird which I’d bought last year in its 50th anniversary edition. It’s been restored and looks incredibly good now. I’m not quite sure the boys exactly liked it but I think they did find it engaging. I know the Scientist and I both loved seeing it again in its restored glory.

I received an email last week from San Churro’s Chocolateria, offering me a complimentary Churros for Two at their store. The only requirement was it had to be redeemed on my birthday or the two days surrounding it. I chose to go today since I knew I’d have cake yesterday. Game Fanatic didn’t come along as it was likely to be crowded (and was). Lego Lover wanted the same thing for himself, to eat entirely on his own. I intended to share mine with the Scientist but he only would eat one so I was left struggling to finish the others. There was no way I was leaving any of it behind…but it left me feeling a bit full for quite a while afterwards.

We then took a drive down the coast to Cottesloe Beach where a Sculpture by the Sea exhibit has been running and finished today. This has been staged for several years now but we’ve never managed to get there. I don’t recommend waiting for the last day as it was quite crowded, right up until sunset. There were nearly 60 sculptures but we only managed to see about a dozen of the sculptures before it got too dark to see. I took some photos but people kept getting in the way so I’ve had to delete quite a few of them. What was disturbing was the number of parents allowing their children to climb over the sculptures, even though there are signs everywhere asking people not to touch the exhibits. It was a nice exhibit and I hope to go there next year but allow time to see everything…plus avoid going on the last day, of course. :D  It was quite a noisy place as we left due to the relatively large crowds still in the area plus the birds. Seems the lorikeets return to the trees as night and seem to start shouting at each other constantly. It’s amazing how such beautiful birds can be such pests!