:):):)!!!Happy Birthday Dad!!! :):):)

On the 20th of December was Dad's birthday!!! As per tradition in the morning we sang happy birthday and gave Dad his presents. We got him a professional snorkelling set- blue flippers and mask! There was also a bag and a DVD on how to use the gear! The DVD was really amusing to watch! Linda gave him a framed painting and we also gave him chocolate. He loved the snorkling set!!! Apparently he had wanted one for a very long time!! He kept walking around the house in flippers!!
We baked Dad a cake and I decorated the top- it's not as easy as it looks using the squirting thing to draw with icing-but it's really fun once you get the hang of it! I wrote 'happy birthday' in Russian and drew a plane (Dad likes planes) and stars and a sun.
We also made pelimeni- Russian food which is small mince balls wrapped in dough and boiled, as well as salads and other dishes! I made seafood salad which is a favourite of mine!

We had a really nice dinner during which a couple of Dad's friends came over and joined us in our celebration. Just as we were saying a toast there was an earthquake!!! I didn't really feel it but everyone else did! It felt like just a slight wobble so we didn't really do anything about it, but the next day we read about it in the newspaper and it was 6.8 on the Ricter Scale and it's epicentre was in Napier! There were photos of the damage in Napier on the front page and wow it looked horrid! Luckily no one was badly hurt. We were lucky we weren't anywhere near Napier at the time, although we are going on holiday to Havelock North soon which is very close to Napier!!
We spent a long time at the table talking, saying toasts and then went to dance a bit....
...and then went back to the table and had dessert and cake, and sang Happy Birthday.
After sitting around and talking for a bit longer it was time for Dad to go to work (unfortunately he was on night shift at work that day) so our celebration had to come to a close. Dad's friends lived in Wellington so they left and took him to work on the way, while Mum and I were left to clean up and wash the dishes (Linda had already gone to bed a while ago, it was around midnight by this time).

It was just past midnight when we went to bed. Before going to bed I had a slight hassle trying to take my ring off. I have this pearl ring that I wear on special occasions that I always put on my right hand second to last fingerand it always fits perfectly and I can take it off by putting my finger in cold water (gold metal ring moulds around finger due to body heat while wearing the ring and goes back to normal once cooled). Only this time when I was putting it on I put it on the middle finger instead of the second to last finger so when I tried to take it off it just wouldn't come off! I was really innoyed as I don't like sleeping in jewllery, so after many attempts of pulling the ring off Mum finally got me some margarine and the ring came off! Whew! It doesn't sound like a bit deal but it was quite past midnight and I was really tired and couldn't wait to get to bed! Luckily the next day I got to sleep in because it's the holidays!! Yeeeaa!! Oh how much I love holidays!!! :)