{"id":10254,"date":"2014-04-18T02:54:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T02:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10254"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","slug":"birthday-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10254","title":{"rendered":"BIRTHDAY WEEKEND"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This past weekend was a busy one as we celebrated three birthdays: Johnny’s, Hannah’s and mine.Some gifts came early through the mail – like these bagels Grandma Trudy sent for Hannah.\u00a0 (The puppy was NOT a gift – it belongs to the Bundys next door.\u00a0 Buddy is more than enough for us to deal with right now!)<\/p>\n\n\n

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Here’s\u00a0MY favorite gift – Melissa ordered me in\u00a0a bottle of Nyquil and I was finally able to kick my sinus infection. She didn’t intend it for my birthday, but it was\u00a0certainly a welcome\u00a0“treat”.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Before heading into the restaurant, we stopped next door at one of the two grocery stores that Melissa and I tend to frequent: Kokyaj.\u00a0 Johnny had never been inside and he and the other two took lots of pictures … of themselves posing in front of canned goods.I was looking for crackers but came upon a rare treat: cans of Dr. Pepper.\u00a0 I decided to buy one can as a surprise for Hannah and one to share at dinner with the three guys who (gasp!) had never\u00a0even heard of\u00a0Dr. Pepper before.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Thankfully, the young ladies\u00a0didn’t stay up TOO late, so Saturday morning they were up early looking forward to some chocolate chip pancakes.If I remember correctly, snapping this pic was followed by these words: “Daddy!\u00a0 Don’t post that on Facebook or the blog!”\u00a0 (She never reads my blog.)<\/p>\n\n\n

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After breakfast, Grandma Trudy Skyped and that gave Hannah an excuse to open some presents so Grandma could be a part of the moment … from a distance.<\/p>\n\n\n

Much of the rest of the morning was spent in crafting.\u00a0 Hannah was\u00a0in such\u00a0a good mood, she even allowed her little sister to participate as well.<\/p>\n\n\n

These girls were serious about their crafts!<\/p>\n\n\n

Then there was pizza (and one Dr. Pepper) for lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n

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And chocolate cupcakes!<\/p>\n\n\n

Grandma Gross had sent money and a hairbow- and\u00a0bracelet-making kit –\u00a0all of which was\u00a0a big hit.<\/p>\n\n\n

That evening, the celebration continued with a dinner at the Heckmans’ house. Delicious food and great company!\u00a0 And more cupcakes.<\/p>\n\n\n

On Sunday we spent the day at Cormier Plage, just on the other side of Cap Haitien.\u00a0 A gorgeous day at the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0The kids and I started our\u00a0time with a bit of exploration of the rocks at the far end of the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n

I got to spend quite a bit of time snorkeling – one of my favorite beachside activities.\u00a0 The highlight this time was finding a fist-sized octopus that I pestered for nearly 30 minutes. He was so mad he inked four times.For some reason, throughout the day we kept running into Cowman students – four total!\u00a0 Like Sarah’s little friend from 1st grade, Hannah.<\/p>\n\n\n

Not to mention the Heckman family and the Weavers! Our kids were thrilled to get another meal in with Haylie and Ethan and Melissa and I enjoyed our adult time with Emily and Phil Heckman and Cheyenne and Ryan Weaver, who all work at Emmaus Biblical Seminary.<\/p>\n\n\n

And homemade ICE CREAM!<\/p>\n\n\n

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This past weekend was a busy one as we celebrated three birthdays: Johnny’s, Hannah’s and mine.Some gifts came early through the mail – like these bagels Grandma Trudy sent for Hannah.\u00a0 (The puppy was NOT a gift – it belongs to the Bundys next door.\u00a0 Buddy is more than enough for us to deal with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10277,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10254\/revisions\/10277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}