Birthday Wishes to the Mrs.

My beautiful wife had a birthday last week, on July 11 to be exact. She turned...., well, lets just say that she turned another day older!! But, to me, she's not getting older, only better! Beverly is an amazing person, wife, mother, grandmother and friend. She continues to put others before herself. I hope that I learn to appreciate that trait more fully and I suspect that others see it in her life as well.

For her birthday, she chose not some big birthday get away, but to have her aging parents down for the day as well as our daughter and our grand children. It was a full day filled with visiting and eating. Eating calls for cooking, so a lot of her birthday was spent preparing meals. Not too exciting, but it was good to have as many here as possible. The boys were out of pocket, but they called her and wished her their best!

Here are 5 things I like about Beverly (it's hard to come up with your Top 5 things because there so many!):

1. She is a Godly woman that wants and tries to put God first in her life.

2. Beverly is a beauty, inside and out. She likes to see the good in people.

3. She loves to go 4-wheeling in the Jeep especially in Colorado
over some pretty wild places. She has a great sense of adventure.

4. She is a great mother and grand mother. She is a hard worker, too!

5. Beverly continues to love me even when I don't deserve it.

Happy Birthday to my best friend! I love you. Here are a few pictures that I like of her (some you may have seen before, but I like them). I know she won't like any of them, but, hey, I'm the one doing the post! I couldn't find the song "You're My Best Friend" by Don Williams so "Till the rivers Run Dry" will have to do.

The Sad, Sorrowful Saga of Sweetie Pie

As you may know, we had a cat show up at the house several months ago and, well, you know, she had a sweet personality and everything and well, you know, she got to hanging around and, well, she finally just stayed and we got to really love her. Well, as nature will have it with stray female cats, she was or became pregnant during her visit here and had 4 kittens about the first of April. She was a good mama and was doing a good job raising them, until one morning she didn't come up to eat. Sad story, but the following day we found her down in the park behind us. She had had a run in with something, probably a car.

Well, the kittens were 5 weeks old and were learning to eat on their own, so thanks to some mothering from Beverly, they made it. One looked pretty much like a Siamese, one was a grey Tabby and the other two looked like twins with white faces and tan, Siamese looking hair. Taylor named the smallest one Sweetie Pie and that was his favorite and he named the other twin Fluffy. Simon and Tiger rounded out the name giving of the two boy kittens.

Well, kittens are OK, but 4 rapidly growing kittens soon become cats. We thought we had all of them placed but at the last minute we found a new home for the twin girls, Fluffy and Sweetie Pie. Taylor was, lets just say disappointed, that they were not going to grow old here in the Phillips household. We told his mother that if she thought it was OK, she might bring Taylor by and let him tell Sweetie Pie goodbye. One afternoon, Beverly was working around the house when she heard this awful wailing and crying out in the yard. Upon investigation, she discovered Taylor and his beloved Sweetie Pie saying their goodbyes. It was painful for a few days, but we are happy to report that both boy and cats have made the transition and are doing well.

Just don't mention the name Sweetie Pie around here!