Wow, what a busy, awesome, wonderful weekend. Lots of amazing people helped me celebrate my birthday weekend. As a kid, having your birthday on Memorial Day was a bummer. Being in a tourist town, your mother, father and family always worked. Now, as I’m in the business, I get it! I turned 54 on May 26, 2019.

I was fortunate to start celebrating my birthday Thursday night with my bestie, my bestie pal and my bestie newbies; lol, I love nicknames. Friday night my husband and I were able to have dinner with Sally and Bill Thomas, our very dear friends, at the amazing restaurant Brady’s. And the fun continued Saturday afternoon with a cookout with my sweet friend Sammy, Andrew, and my very dear friend Kris, at their beautiful house with lots of McLellan family members. It was so nice to catch up with everyone. Sunday was the day and we all met at Brady’s for the last hooray with my beautiful girls and family. Blessed and being grateful doesn’t even cut it. Having family and the best friends is what life’s all about.

OK, enough of that. Now, I’m not much of a baker but I can bake a good pie. I’m going to share how I make all my berry pies. We are baking strawberry rhubarb pie with fresh rhubarb from my own garden. I made three pies, two for my Methodist church pie sale and one for Sally and Bill Thomas. Pie crust? I am not going to lie — I buy them at Hannaford. Being as busy as we all are, it’s time to save a step.

Let your pie crust sit out for about 15 minutes so it’s easy to unfold. Place the bottom one in your pie plate and set aside. I used one large container of strawberries for all three pies and three cups of fresh rhubarb, washed and cut into chunks. Mix it all together in a large mixing bowl. I add one and a half cups of sugar, one tablespoon of cinnamon, one tablespoon of ginger, one tablespoon of nutmeg and a quarter cup of flour. Mix it all together and split three ways into your pie crusts. Now add at least four tablespoons of butter. Now top off your crust and seal it up by folding under nice and snug. Bake on 425 degrees for 15 minutes then turn down your oven to 350 degrees and let cook for 45 more minutes. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream … OMG, delicious!

I just want to say thank you to all our veterans far and near and to the families of fallen soldiers. God bless you all. If you see and know a veteran, thank him or her for making our world a safer place to live.

Be safe everyone and a very large thank you to those who made my special day the best it could be.