Emily’s Musings

What an eventful week! We celebrated our Tenth Anniversary, David’s birthday, and Hannah’s first birthday, all in one week. We have most certainly had our fill of chocolate cake and good food.

This anniversary was very special. Not only did it signify our “married-ness” for 10 years, we actually celebrated as a family, making it our first “Famaversary”. It was fun to take our little one to dinner with us. We have had nine quiet anniversaries (sans little people), and this one was special to celebrate as a family. Don’t get me wrong, we will most certainly have quiet, um . . . cough . . . boring . . . getaways as a couple, but is was nice to include the little one. We ate at Swinging Doors on Saba. It is a BBQ Ribs place that is delicious!

David had a great birthday gift, and it wasn’t from me! It rained, ALL DAY. It rained BUCKETS of water ALL DAY. If I could have placed an order for weather for his special day, this is what he would have ordered. In fact, I was so sure the floods were coming, I was looking for Noah and the Arc. David’s secret passions are flying airplanes and meteorology. Please don’t ask why he is becoming a doctor. Maybe so he can talk about the weather with them and his travels. Anyhoo . . .

Saba has been in somewhat of a drought. This island needed water in a bad way. In fact, word among the locals is that God is punishing Saba for electing a gay man into political office. Yep. We live on a very religious Catholic island, and the latest election has certainly had some controversy. Every house collects its own water into a cistern. There is no city water. If you run out, you’re messed up. My husband is quite particular about the cistern and how much water we have left. One weekend, while he was supposed to be studying, he decided to figure out how big the cistern was, how many gallons of water it held, and how many gallons of water we had. This activity alone puts him the “Anal Retentive” category. Anyway, we were running low on water, the rains came pouring down, and we got 17 inches of rain in the cistern. What does this mean? I can now do ALL the laundry I want!

David stayed home from school on his birthday (because on your birthday you can do whatever you want!) and watched it rain all day. I obviously wasn’t able to take a cake to him at school because he was home with me. I took a cake to the school to share with some of his classmates the next day. It was beautiful. Not the event, the cake! I made it all from scratch. It was a chocolate cake that didn’t have any cocoa in it, just melted chocolate bars. Yum . . . I made the icing from scratch too, all melted chocolate bars in a double boiler.

I put 32 candles in the cake, which looked like 100 because lets face it, 32 burning candles is bright! We sang “Happy Birthday” and enjoyed the cake. Several members of his class said, “You made this?” “You are an excellent cook!” Me, an excellent cook? Maybe they don’t know how ironic that sounds. I may have tainted my reputation as a mess in the kitchen!

Hannah LOVED her cake. Mostly because it was chocolate cake. She loves chocolate cake, just like her dad. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with the cake, but in no time she had it all over her face, body, and hair. She was a mess!