Birthday

I like New Year’s. I like anniversaries. I like birthdays.

They all represent a fresh start and a clean slate for me. I can start out the new year looking back and looking ahead. I also usually set goals, but then I start to loose momentum. Lucky for me half way through the year I have a birthday. So I get to cheat a little bit and have another “new year”.

Looking back at being 34 I feel it was a productive year. Certainly a year of transition, but it was also a very difficult year. I faced many hurtles and gut wrenching decisions.

Looking forward to what life will look like at 35 I am pretty excited. I will celebrate 10 years of motherhood which is wild to me (A.K.A. Z’s birthday, but let’s make it all about me, ha!). I will celebrate 17 years of marriage (also kinda crazy), and last but not least I will celebrate SJ graduating from her deaf school.

Lots to celebrate, but it will also be an intense season with three out of four kids in three different schools with three different schedules.

As far as the actual 35th birthday celebration itself it was awesome. As an adult I don’t really make a big deal of my birthday, but some stuff fell into place this year for us to have a party at our new house.

After learning that we would be hosting a cook out for 22 people utilizing only the little fire pit in our back yard my family all began scheming privately to get a grill for us.

Now this a pretty lofty gift in my book, but they justified it by making it a housing warming present, a birthday present for me, and a birthday present for J whose birthday is less than a month away.

The day of the party J was busy flipping burgers over the open flame when he turns to spot my brothers sneaking the new grill onto the patio.

Sure they could have spared him the labor with the fire if they told us ahead of time, but it all happened pretty spontaniously and that made it made that much more fun.

The next day J and I went out for a special date night. Here are a few pics from that.

Funny story. I shared this picture on Facebook with the caption “We are trying to up our PDA game because last time we went on a date the server asked us if we were on seperate checks”. Seriously.

We had such a great time. The whole birthday was pretty special, but the week’s not over so I’m still making excuses to eat junk food and sleep more. Hey it’s my birthday!