Today is my husband Ray’s birthday. He just turned 66, which seems impossible since I’ve known him since he was 19, which doesn’t seem all that long ago. However, from then to now, we’ve shared a whole lifetime of memories. What a gift.

We had lunch today with Liz, Ron, and Ethan at Zaidee’s Bar and Grill at the Ojai golf course. We had dinner tonight at the orange grove thanks to our son-in- law Ron, who made sweet potato tacos and homemade banana date ice cream. Our friends Sonny and Sovahn are still here from Massachusetts and celebrated with us.

The highlight of this evening was watching Space X launch one of its rockets, which we could see clearly just standing on our road. Ray tracked the whole thing on his computer, where, after a successful launch, we watched the landing of the engine portion of the rocket on a drone ship moored in the Pacific off of Baja California. Watching that landing looked like a scene from an old sci-fi movie but it was actually real. Quite impressive engineering!

Ray will celebrate with our other kids and grandkids in early April. He, Luna, and Lyla will have a joint birthday party at that time. However, today, Ray’s official birthday was a great success. He has been launched into his new year quite properly and all is well in our world.

Here are Ray, Ethan, Liz and Ron today at Zaidee’s.