Turning to a small table to her left, Alyce Ruttkay reaches into a pocket and withdraws a card depicting a woman with both arms joyously raised above her head.

“This is how I feel about my birthday,” says Ruttkay, pointing to the card, “Kind of a ‘whoop-de-do!'”

Ruttkay, who resides at Brookdale Senior Living, turns 100 today.

She was born in Irvington, Nebraska on Aug. 3, 1916 and remembers riding in a horse-drawn buggy with her mother to buy groceries.

She moved to Washington with her husband in 1940, following the advice of her sister.

“She told us how beautiful it was here,” Ruttkay remembers. “She was right.”

The cooler weather and green scenery — “the roses,” she says — were all starkly different from her home state.

Ruttkay has a passion for art, with several of her own paintings and drawings on the walls of her room. She also enjoys reading and spending time with her family: three kids, six grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.