Birthday celebration

I know, my birthday was almost a month ago but the celebrations continue. Friends took me to lunch and gave me the perfect gift.I sat down with a nice cup of tea and drooled, thinking of all the things I want to make. Then I put a pattern to good use.I’ve been concerned that the light blue ring doesn’t really stand out. So, add some applique. I modified the pattern some, but just by removing some elements. This also gave me the chance to practice some more with my Appliquick tools. I am getting better!

Then it was time to go for a lovely birthday dinner with Joel. I wanted to go to the new Nomad hotel, but the menu in the restaurant was very small. So we went to Redbird instead.

We arrived early and found street parking in Little Tokyo! Unheard of!There are so many new apartment buildings, Little Tokyo is hopping. This mural over a parking lot really grabbed me. I think I have a thing for birds these days. Not to mention that it looks like embroidery, cross stitch and all.I think they prefer this cat in this neighborhood.That looks like the Challenger, lets go take a closer look. Indeed it is a memorial to one of the astronauts. Although I was in Israel at the time, this disaster was very big news. We all heard about Christa Mcauliffe, the teacher from New Hampshire. The Japanese American community has not forgotten, I am grateful for that.  We don’t hear much about this community because they overcame the indignation and horror of internment during WWII by president Roosevelt, and went on to build good meaningful lives. One of them was Elison S. Onizuka, I’m sorry he died when he did, I’m glad his community honors him.Redbird is in the rectory of St. Vibiana. You can see the new apartment block in the background, the whole neighborhood is filling up with these. St. Vibiana is the original Cathedral in Los Angeles. Once the new Cathedral was built, there was nothing holy or consecrated about this building. It almost faced demolition and these days serves as an event center.I wish we had more address signs like this. Beautiful.

Dinner was amazing, well worth it and perfect for a birthday celebration. I couldn’t resist pulling out my phone when dessert arrived.A very upscale homemade smores, with marshmallow ice cream, decadent and amazing.Yup, very very happy with my birthday.