René is 60

Well. Werner's son René had another big "0" birthday, this time 60. Yow. Michelle will be 60 next year, so this was warm-up for me. 

Funny meeting our old furniture in a new setting, but fine. 

My travel log tells me Nancy was here around René's 30th birthday in 1995 and we took a trip with her from here to Prague with some interesting stops along the way, so we missed the big 3-0. The birthday boy celebrated with a lot of folks at a local restaurant, I'm told. I don't have the blog to jog my memory about the 40th in 2005, but I remember that was a really loud affair that lasted to the early house, also with a lot of (the same!) people. The 50th was also at home, though another location, with a whole roasted wild boar. René will do a party, but in my limited (30+ year experience) Germans in my orbit relish celebrations of these milestones. Frankly, this one was rather subdued. The guests are getting older!!

Amina and Finn picked us up at the train station in Harburg and we got to the site of the party about an hour before starting time. It was all so ready except for roasting the last batch of chicken legs. 

And then the guests started trickling in so by about 2PM most were there and beginning to feast on the feast - the roasted chicken legs, sliced roast beef with remoulade, vitello tonnato (veal with tuna sauce and capers), pasta salad, wild boar goulash, mushroom sauce, lotsa noodles for the mushrooms and goulash, baguettes. Oh, and guests brought dessert for later (we contributed some pecan squares, well-received).

Monika (mom) and Lex were there from Curaçao, of course; in-laws, poker guys and neighbors and friends from the shooting club were happy guests. Lex's sister from Holland was there, a real treat to see her again. I'd venture to say there was no one there who'd not been friends for a minimum of 20 years. How nice and how special.

And the weather! How perfect - sunshine and about 68° though it felt warmer in the sun. 

There were gifts of course. Werner put together a collage (of sorts) of art work that René had produced over the years, I'm guessing from about 5 to 11. He was tickled and everyone had a fun time looking at it. After the fact, I thought we should have transferred the pictures to fabric and I could have done a quilt, but ....

Other friends had their own creations and special gifts that made the day even more super. Umpty hours later, we all called it a night. 

Next morning we enjoyed a late breakfast. René and Rima have a hair salon and in Germany, they are all (ALL) closed on Monday, so no rush this morning, thank goodness. Clean up took a while.

We had a look at the drawings and paintings that Amina is putting together for her application to the art college (Kunsthochschule) in Hamburg. The portfolio has to be presented to the preliminary judges on October 6, so she's down to the final sprint. She's a talented young woman, and we wish her all the best!  It's a challenge to get admitted, for sure. 

So, another birthday wrapped. The next biggie is mine, end of October. Paris. OMG. But that is a party for two....