Birthday and Other Surprises

My birthday fell on a busy Wednesday this year. We both had mutual that night, which we always need to juggle and decide who goes and who stays. Josh has been really busy at work. A date night just wasn't in the cards, and there are few places I'd want to go to eat anyway. Small town, remember?

Fortunately, the kids were up *EARLY*, decorating the house with streamers and balloons! It's not really a birthday without them. My instructions were to stay quiet in my bed and relax. Maybe read a Harry Potter book**, until they came up to get me. They brought me breakfast in bed, which they made themselves: 7-grain bread with LOTS of butter, a glass of orange juice, which fortunately made it up the stairs still in its glass, and a plastic bowl of the crumbs of mom's favorite cereal - Raisin Bran Crunch. Just the kind of breakfast every now 35-yr-old needs!

My gift was a boxed set of the Harry Potter movies.** You see why they had Harry Potter on the brain? They were so excited to have me open it! Yaks and I watched the dragon scene from Goblet of Fire together. It was fun! I got several thoughtful gifts from dear family members, my annual uninterrupted phone conversation with my mom, and lots of Facebook greetings, or, as Jimmy Fallon says,

"Thank you, happy birthday wishes, for no longer meaning,
'I remembered your birthday!' and instead meaning, 'I was on Facebook today!'"

So funny. So true, but I love the greetings all the same!

Later that day, Josh came home for the afternoon. He had pulled an all-nighter and was dying to rest, and I was dying to go out and do something! So, we put Diddles to bed, he rested, and I went to Yaks' classroom and volunteered for a few hours. His teacher was so excited to have some help that day, so I felt so good to be able to be there when she needed a hand. Yaks' little face, seeing me unexpectedly come in to help, was awesome too.


Later that night, we cooked up some pizzas and had my requested dessert of cheesecake from Wal-mart's bakery. I made a little raspberry sauce to go with it. It's delicious! I know?! Wal-mart cheesecake? Sounds wrong, but it tastes just right. Birthday candles and singing. A happy and healthy family? What's left to wish for?

Maybe some photos next year taken on something other than the smudged lens of the camera phone. :)

A day before my birthday, I noticed a water spot on the ceiling of the garage, on the side which sits below the kitchen. I called on Josh to investigate, and he discovered the the water line to the fridge ice maker/water had frozen and popped off the back of the fridge, watering the wood floor beneath it for several days. Disaster. We feel sick about it, but it was truly just one of those accidents that happens. We got the water turned off, alerted the owner, and then moved the fridge to dry out what we could. In the days that followed, the wet wood began to warp and buckle. The beautiful wood floor needed to be pulled up, dried out with dozens of LOUD industrial driers and de-humidifiers, and will need to be replaced and the entire floor refinished! So, in the meantime, our floor is pulled up, the fridge sits out-of-place on the other side of the kitchen, and we're all left feeling bad. :(

To end on a happy note, a few weeks ago, we were invited to a corn maze sponsored by the school. The college of Ag and Life Science students plan and plow and run this event every year to raise money for their clubs. We were practically the only ones there, as it was a sort of preview before it officially opened. Josh made it so fun and packed hot chocolate, glow-in-the-dark necklaces, flashlights and lots of warm clothes. We had a map of the maze (shaped like the head of the mascot), and the kids were so excited to follow it and decide which way (left or right) to go! "We're walking in his nostril!" The kids hadn't been to anything like this in years, so it was really a great treat for them. Diddles was very quiet and clingy the whole time, and we realized afterwards, the poor dear was probably scared out of her wits! She sleeps with the lights dimmed, doesn't ever go outside when it's dark, and who wanders around a spooky crackly corn maze when they are two?