Happy 89th Birthday Pap

This week would have been my Pap Pap's 89th Birthday and the 5th year we've been without him.  I stuck with tradition and had a nice Italian meal in his honor.  This time it was pasta with Italian sausage and a homemade sauce made from whatever I could find around my kitchen.  A major improvement from last year is that I made the cannoli filling myself, rather than buying the cannoli pre-made.

There are 5 of us cousins, Pap's grandkids.  Darren is 4th in the lineup and I'm 8 years after him, the baby by far!  Darren moved to Hawaii in 2002 and I followed suit in 2008.  So, since he's so close by I thought we could have our "Pap's Birthday Dinner" together!  What was supposed to be dinner had to be rescheduled for lunch... then Darren forgot about the change of plans!  Long and really funny story short - we ate dinner together the day after Pap's birthday.  We agreed that pasta and cannoli filling are probably better on the day after they're made anyways.

Dinner was delicious.  Darren told me stories that reminded me so much of Pap - like how he rigged chopsticks to a drill to stir organic peanut butter!  I cracked Pap's typical jokes "You know why I like chocolate?  Because you can't see the dirt!"  And we toasted our cannoli to our Pap Pap.  

We (all) miss and love you Pap.