Everything was planned out perfectly (and had been for months) to make James' 30th birthday a rousing success and then, one by one, everything started unraveling. If I'm being honest it was a really disappointing week because while I'm usually a pro at managing my expectations, I was SO excited about every fun surprise and it's intended reaction that I didn't leave much wiggle room for things going awry. And awry they went!
But regardless of whether or not the celebrations were a success, we were all still grateful that James was born, that he is ours, and that he is 30! I always love this time of the year when we share the same age, and being 30 together feels particularly fun. Happy birthday to our favorite Dad-Man!
We wanted to surprise James at work with balloons, California donuts, flowers and party hats the day before his birthday since he was going to be out of town on the actual day. We talked to his secretary to figure out a time and you better believe we surprised him, but mostly maybe because he had a meeting two minutes later that we didn't know about. Whoops! We grabbed a picture, he walked us to the break room, and then those three Wiglet's and I ate donuts alone before sneaking a couple of pictures, nearly dialing a partner on Daddy's phone, and sneaking back down the elevator. It wasn't exactly the party I hoped it would be, but he was grateful for our efforts so that's good.
The week before and of his birthday work picked up considerably and we didn't see him at all. I knew that a night-time celebration was probably out of the question so I made the executive decision that we would be having a breakfast birthday party with his requested cookie dough ice cream cake. I had never made an ice cream cake before, and who eats ice cream cake for breakfast anyway, but what was important to us was that we got to sing to James and celebrate his birthday together as a family and if breakfast was the only time we could do it, so be it! Everyone loved the cake (phew) and loved watching him open up his presents. Everyone was so generous and it was fun to see the cards that people picked out and the presents they decided to give him. He know doubt felt loved.
My big present to James was a family tent and a camping trip. He's wanted to go camping for SO long and I worked for months on finding the most beautiful camping site (that wasn't too far), booking it after being wait-listed for nearly 6 weeks, buying the tent, borrowing other camping gear and planning a delicious menu for a weekend in the woods. To say that this all came at the wrong time would be an understatement, and even though I want to erase these memories from my brain I'm including them, for posterity (and also for sympathy). James was busy and stressed with work, Quinny got really sick, the "easy pop-up tent" ended up being broken and after hours of working on it had to be Jerry-rigged to stay up, Quinn was up all night long screaming in pain and James and I had to take turns sitting in the car with her to muffle her screams for other campers, and on, and on, and on. We ended up staying only one night instead of two (in fact, we were only there for like 12 hours), we ate the money for the extra night of camping and we returned the tent instead of exchanging it--probably not going to go camping again anytime soon. We got home, showered, and then spent the rest of the day washing smelly blankets and clothes, running around to baseball games and other errands and working. I thought it was going to be the 30th birthday that dreams were made of but it may have swayed a little more towards nightmare! Oh well, better luck next year for 31!
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