A lovely evening for a birthday party...

It's late, but I wanted to post these pictures of the birthday party we attended this evening. It was Joanne B's actual 65th birth-day and we joined her in celebrating it. The boys blew up these balloons for her with the rest of the helium that we had in the little tank Mom had bought for Andrew's graduation.

Here my parents are visiting while waiting to go through the food line... (My mom's up on the deck and my dad is sitting in the wooden chair.)

Joanne's mother, Fern (we've rented her farmland for several years now, so that's how we've gotten to know her well) read a nice poem about prayer....

Fern had requested that the boys bring their instruments along and play for everyone, so that's what they're doing here... Or at least, that's what Andrew's doing--I think Jacob was trying to get his guitar tuned...

Then they wanted pictures of the birthday girl (on the right) with the cake baker/decorator. We held the cake up for so many pictures though that, by the time we set it down again, it had slipped dangerously close to the edge of the cake board!

Joanne really liked the cake, so I was glad about that! :)

Fern said that this tree came from Washington state. It looked so exotic in a North Dakota backyard--with it's huge leaves and all!

We stayed at the party a little longer than we'd planned and consequently were just finishing our barnyard chores as the sun slipped behind the hills in the West. We had a nice time visiting though and, overall, had a peaceful day. Earlier in the afternoon, we sang hymns for a while as a family and then watched Dr. S. M. Davis's message, "Understanding Loyalty in a Disloyal World." I just love when we have restful days like this!