Birthday Girl

My mother-in-law, Hana had her birthday today, she turned 87 today!

A few things you may not know about Hana:

She loves Elvis. She even went with one of her daughters to a concert. This was in his later years, her daughter thought he looked a bit fat in his jumpsuit.

Dark chocolate is her secret indulgence. She has a few bags of Dove Dark Chocolate hiding in the freezer. Sometimes she even shares it with me. When I see Dove chocolates on sale, I stock up for her.

She is a knitting and crocheting maniac. For her birthday her daughter brought her a bag of netting to be made into kitchen scrubbers. She blew through the stash in about 2 days, making several scrubbers. She makes hats and booties for newborns at the hospital. Each of our babies wore hats and booties home from the hospital that she had knitted. I've also kept a few sets for our grandbabies to wear. Rick's niece and nephews each have sets for when they start having babies.

She loves to enter canned goods in the county fair. She use to can a lot, but has slowed down the last few years. Each summer she would take a box full of peaches, pears, green beans, pickled garlic, tomatoes and other perfectly packed preserves to the fair office. Later we would have to go to the fair to find out how her items did. Most years she dominated the categories. She has a shelf full of trophies she proudly displays. For several years we had a friendly competition in the freezer jam section, for some reason I would take 2nd to her 1st. One year we made our jam together, same berries, same sugar, same jars and she won. Last week we made jam together, I may have to see if my jam finally beats hers.*

I hope Hana had a fun birthday. She had phone calls from her friends and kids, nice cards in the mail. and a beautiful floral arrangement from a daughter. We took her out to pizza and had a couple of her friends meet us there. The kids made fun cards and a yummy cake. The oven at Pietro's broke down or something and it took forever to get our pizza, but everyone seemed to enjoy just chatting, so I think it went well.