It's my birthday, it's my birthday...

Yep, today's my birthday. I know there are those (including me sometimes) who think I'm lucky to have made it this long. How long? I'm 57 today and proud to be.

It's also our friend Michael's birthday. It's kinda spooky: Michael and I have the same birthday and Michael's wife Michelle and Elaine have the same birthday. Is that the Twilight Zone theme I hear in the background? We don't know what it means. It's just one of those little oddities of life. We were gonna have a big party but Michael is in Connecticut for work. So we're just gonna have a little party for now and BIG one later.

So I started my birthday SCUBA diving. Elaine and I had breakfast on the balcone. Then she rode Chocolate on the beach while I ran some errands. Then, back in the water for an hour of snorkeling. Ah, life is good! Ola Lola's is open tonight so I'll get to spend my birthday evening with a bunch of my Puerto Rico friends.

The one thing I do miss is our friends in the States, especially our kite-flying friends. For years, Elaine and I produced a kite festival/sport kite competition that always fell around Father's Day/my birthday. I do miss sharing my birthday with those friends.

When we left Michigan, a couple of good good friends took over the event and true to tradition, the event was this weekend. We got this e-mail from Dave and Mary last night.

We had perfect weather this year! Perfect sun, perfect wind, beautiful kites and banners all around.

We had enough wind for Darrell Waters and Jerry McGuire to get an octopus and manta ray up in the air for the entire day Saturday. Mike Moore and Bobby Benton came all the way from Pittsburgh, PA to fly.

We had the fighter kite guys there too.

We've attached our annual "Hi John and Elaine!" pics and I've posted some more on our website (www.back2thewind.com).

Thank you for passing the torch. You passed along a blessing as well.
Love ya both!
Dave and Mary

Thank you, Dave and Mary, for doing such a wonderful job of keeping the event alive and growing but also for keeping us in the loop. We really appreciate it.

So Lola's is open tonight. Gotta go work on my birthday (if you can call this work!).