2025 Life Logs, Day 176: Happy 16th Birthday to Jonah
Date: Thursday, June 26, 2025
Weather: Overcast with Sprinkles All Day Long; High Temp 73, Low 60 degrees
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I have been so incredibly busy that I have not posted a log for the past four days. I will be posting those logs in the next couple of days, but here is a quick summary. Sunday was Jonah’s birthday party with friends at R1, an entertainment center in Rhode Island. Monday was a beach day with Ollie and his friend Seton and my nephew Rex and his wife Diana from West Virgina arrived for a four-day visit. Tuesday, Rex, Diana, and I took off for a day trip to Provincetown. It was the hottest day of the year to date, but that didn’t deter our exploration of the town and the Cape Cod National Seashore. On Wednesday, I had an Encore Board meeting in the morning, but I made it to Heather and Jed’s in time to give Sam a farewell hug before he took off on a European adventure with friends. Then Rex, Diana, and I were off to Stony Beach for a relaxing afternoon. This morning, I woke up asking, “Where in the world is Sam?” Before I went to bed last night, Heather let me know that Sam, Robert, and Ethan had arrived in Amsterdam and were waiting for their flight to Prague. Early this morning we heard from Robert that they had arrived in Prague and were on the bus to explore the downtown area. They will be in Prague until Monday when they travel on to Freiburg, Germany.
That brings me to today. Rex and Diana left around 10 am travelling to Niagara Falls before returning home to West Virginia on Saturday. After they left, I spent the rest of my morning on my computer doing Library Trustee work and general catching up. I checked in with Ollie, but he really didn’t want to do anything today. Heather was working from home, so I left him there, checked in at the library to see if there were additional checks to write, attended the weekly Indivisible meeting at 3 pm, and before I knew it, it was time to go to Heather and Jed’s to celebrate Jonah’s birthday.
Sixteen years ago today, Mark and I took Sam to the Falmouth Hospital to meet his little brother. We spent that summer here before returning to Windbird in Australia and then didn’t see Jonah again until we finally sailed Windbird into Woods Hole just in time for his second birthday. We had left a baby and returned to a chubby cheeked, curly blonde-haired happy toddler.
Tonight, during dinner, we all shared some of our favorite memories of Jonah’s early years. My favorite story was about walking up and down the street with Jonah after a rain. He would put on his little astronaut suit and boots and pretend we were walking on the moon. He would announce when there was hot lava and we would have to tip toe at a run to get to safety.
Heather and Jed recalled his first birthday that was centered around tubs of colorful balls. He had loved playing with balls from the time he could hold one in his little hands. That hasn’t changed. Soccer is the love of his life.
Jonah loves soccer, but he also loves birthday cake. For tonight, he dreamed up a recipe and Heather executed the directions. It was a very moist, triple chocolate cake baked in two round pans. The rounds were sliced in half across the middle and warmed raspberry jam was spread on the layers. Each round was then reassembled with a layer of chocolate ganache between the two rounds. Then it was covered with chocolate buttercream icing. Decadent and delicious. Happy 16th birthday to Jonah!
