In case you haven't noticed, we really like birthdays around here. We love celebrating and going out to eat multiple times in the same week and exchanging gifts and finally spilling big surprises so we don't have to hold them in any longer :)
Of course I had to be at school on Steven's birthday, which I was really bummed about, but it worked out really well because he was able to have lunch with his dad and then hang out with his brother for a little while. We had homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner (my first time making it -- oh. my. goodness. I used both cheddar and cougar gold and it was absolutely amazing.) and then took our cribbage board over to The Mint (bar in Enumclaw) to play while we had drinks. It was really fun and relaxing to just be out in Enumclaw and know that we only had a short drive home. Not sure why we don't do that more often. I had picked up a slice of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory on my way home from work for our special birthday dessert. I figured that made more sense than me trying to bake an entire dessert for only the two of us. We shared it while he opened a couple small gifts from me (Psych season 5, and the 1910 expansion for Ticket to Ride -- yay for normal sized color cards!). I had been telling Steven for months how super excited I was about his birthday. Then about a week before he finally asked "so do you have something planned?" Huh. My "big surprise" for his birthday was schedule for Tuesday May 1st, the day after his birthday, and it hadn't really occurred to me that his actual birthday was going to seem like a total dud when I didn't have anything planned or wrapped or anything. So the whole macaroni/cheesecake/Psych thing was totally last minute but it definitely served it's purpose. He had no idea that he hadn't even received his real birthday gift from me yet.
On Tuesday, I left for work around 5:30am, just like I normally do, but showed up back at home at 1:00pm -- more than 3 hours early. I think I freaked him out a little. I gave him a big hug and told him we needed to get going or we would be late for our dinner date in Portland with our friends. He got right in the car. So trusting! If I were on the receiving end of a road trip surprise I would be like "well, what do I need to bring with me? Give me a few minutes. Do we have any car snacks? When will we be back? Should I bring a clean pair of socks?" but he pretty much just walked right out the door and was so super excited about our big surprise trip to Portland.
We arrived at our hotel around 4pm (please, there was no way I was going to drive home that late on a school night) where we took full advantage of the free chai/latte machine and cookies in the lobby. We had our cribbage board with us and it was a perfect way to pass the time before walking over to the restaurant. Jeremy, Ronnie, Sam, Scott, and Kristen all met us at a restaurant called Brix Tavern. Their happy hour was amazing!! Everything we tried was really tasty -- the smoked cheese fondue in particular. We're already planning a return trip. Oh, and Jeremy had a coconut beer that was really lovely. I'm trying to track it down so we can have some at our house. As we were finishing up I could hear Steven making plans with Jeremy for him and Ronnie to come back to the hotel and play one of our new games with us.... time for the second big surprise of the evening.
Cirque du Soleil tickets! This whole big birthday thing started back in February when I bought these tickets. Since the show isn't coming to Seattle this year, I decided we were just going to have to drive down to Portland to see it. I figured Steven had no idea they were even going to be in town. On our drive home from California last month, I noticed the big Cirque tent just off to the West of I-5 and was hoping Steven hadn't seen it. And then since I knew it was there, when we drove down to Portland that night, I was doing everything I could to make sure Steven didn't notice the tent as we drove by. I asked him to get out the GPS when I knew we were getting close but then the GPS was "thinking" so Steven wasn't really paying any attention to it. And then I tried to get him to cuddle me and lean on my shoulder (I was driving obviously) but that didn't last quite long enough so, last resort, I sped up to get next to a semi and kept it between us and the tent until we had passed. Phew! Ridiculous, I know. I was kind of really proud of myself and feeling like "sweet, he has no idea the show is in town, so there's no way he will guess that we're going." But wouldn't you know it, right at the stop light off the exit we took there was a big huge Cirque du Soleil billboard. "Hey look! Cirque du Soleil!!" I didn't even respond. I had no idea if he had any inkling, I just couldn't believe that after all my efforts to hide the tent we got off the freeway to that. Anyhow, he didn't have a clue and was totally shocked when I pulled out the tickets :) He thought dinner with friends in Portland was the big surprise (which it certainly was!! Not often we do that) and was super excited to be going to yet another Cirque show -- our 4th one in the last two years.
(I wanted to get a picture of the tent but you can't see it very well. The yellow and blue stripes were so pretty in the sunset!)
The show was incredible, as usual. We were both asleep within minutes of being back in the hotel room. Wednesday morning we gave ourselves enough time to enjoy breakfast at the hotel, take a walk to Voodoo Doughnuts (bought one of those huge glazed doughnuts for my students to share), and then pop over to Jeremy and Ronnie's for a quick game and lunch, before driving back home. We stopped in Chehalis for Cold Stone and cribbage (nice break from the driving) and made it home in plenty of time to watch a movie, have dinner, and still get to bed at a reasonable hour. It wasn't easy for me to finish out the school week after having that random day and a half off in the middle but it was SO worth it! I just loved surprising Steven with all of those fun things I knew he would really enjoy. We had a blast. (funky water fountain in Portland, I like it.)
Glad I finally got to write about it! It drives me crazy when I have something to blog about and just can't find the time to do it.
The sun was out in full force today and my pink-y skin is feeling a little toasty. I'll be needing some lotion.
Off to spend the rest of Mother's Day weekend with my beautiful mother!!
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