woke up way too early… went out for a hot tub and watched the light come up as the birds sang in the trees… opened my parcel from Cyndi and Ron and found a beautiful bead…

  

which, I discovered a little later, she had made… also some black currant and vanilla tea… gonna try that tomorrow…

went for dimsum with the kids and enjoyed every bite…

then we headed over to The Forks for the Chocolate Festival… wandered around for a couple of hours collecting small bits of a variety of chocolate items… they were tiny and I didn’t have all of them but did get tastes…

ended our visit with a walk down by the river…

  

lots of steps today…

came home, had a rest and made mashed potatoes and stuffing for tomorrow’s supper…

lovely collection of birthday treats…

  

calls, emails, posts all added to my special day… and to top things off I have two sleepover buddies tonight…