yesterday was my

sister's 30th birthday.  I baked a cake and we grilled and guess what.  My sister lives 5 hours away so we did all of this in her honor.  I made a vanilla sheet cake that she told me about last week.  It's half gone now.

I put pecans on half and left the other half plain.  I can't decide which side I like better.  She said it reminds her of petite fours but not me.  To me it's more buttery and moist and gooey.  I have a feeling it's one of those recipes I'll be asked to not make too much.  I mean it's HALF gone already.

I also picked up a different kind of cracker for our dips.  I'd never heard of these before but I really liked them.  I'll definitely buy them again.

Another thing I had yesterday was the Don Q Passion Fruit Rum.  I never found any so when we went to Puerto Rico, I brought a bottle home.  It's really good.  I mixed it with a little ginger ale and grenadine.  Yum.  I'm posting the bottle because it doesn't look like the last bottle I posted when I asked everyone to be on the lookout for it.  So here it is and if you see it, please get me one.

I also went out to the San Jacinto Festival in West Columbia on Friday night.  I wanted to get some carnival pictures with the lights.  Click HERE to see them.

Now I need to get busy so I can make my 10:20 appointment at the car dealer's service center.  I hate going.  It's not that I dislike the people, they always seem to go out of their way to be friendly and helpful.  I hate it like I hate the dentist.  It's like I wait for bad news.  Actually, this will be the first time I wait... hopefully.  They usually give me a loaner and I get to spend a day or two driving around in a newer car until the work is done.  This time I said I'd wait.  If I leave with a loaner, it means they've done like the dentist and found more work that needs to be done.  (sigh.)