And a little bit of afterparty...

So, I blogged about our birthday coming up and then blogged about everything else, and didn't tell you about the birthday. So here's a few after party highlights, in case anyone was wondering:

A. I wasn't able to "surprise" Mate with the wagon because, of ALL the days, the game schedule was different and he needed to load up the vehicles differently. So I showed him the wagon in the back of the car after dinner and a movie--and he really loved it and I'm calling it a win!

B. Dinner--Logan's Steak House--was awesome. We ordered a 30 oz steak with mushrooms and brought half of it home for the kids. The kids also love Logan's. And it was pretty economical to do that and order salads and a couple of sides as opposed to two full meals. Win!

C. The Magnificent Seven-- it was like King Arthur with Clive Owen, except it had Denzel, Chris Prat, Ethan Hawke, and a gay love story to rock the ages. (Okay, Arthur and Lancelot WERE pretty tight, I have to admit.)  Anyway-- I adored it. Booyah!

D. The shirt--was actually pretty funny. While I went running up and down the sidelines to get the shirt signed, two things happened:  1) One of the parents said, "Talk about the last minute! You couldn't have done this during one of the practices?" I was like, "Well, since I didn't think about it until Tuesday, and then bought the stuff Wednesday, and made the shirt Thursday... no."  2) Mate knew I was getting it signed because ZoomBoy was such a good sport at getting his teammates to sign dad's shirt that every time Mate looked up to sub him, Zoomboy was somewhere else. THAT was funny.

E. The shirt--really was his favorite thing, but the wagon was close.

F. I got flowers. *happy glow* Is all I wanted.

G. The parking lot-- this parking lot took a week to get paved. They forgot something vital. Three guesses.

H. So, birthday successful, and I shall leave you with this:

I was waiting for dinner to cook and cleaning off the kitchen table *gasp* when I came upon paperwork for an annuity I used to contribute to when I was teaching. When I stopped teaching, I'd given maybe $3500 to it, and now, six years later, there's $7500 in the account. I'd forgotten all about this, and so I scanned the details with mild disinterest until I saw it was a death benefit-- which I'd forgotten.

At this point, Mate walked in.

"Hey," I said, waving the paper. "Look! If I die, you get almost enough money to ship my yarn to all my friends."

"Well, you do have another death benefit-- you remember that, right?"

"Seriously? No. I don't remember that at all. Is it a lot?"

"Sure. I have to fight against taking a hit out against you every day."

I laugh and gesture to the crap cooking in the pot. "So, what you're saying is that I should hire a food taster."

"Yeah," Mate said. Then, "ZoomBoy, get out here! Mom has something she wants to feed you!"

ZoomBoy rushed right out--because he smelled dinner--and started poking around the now clean kitchen table. "You said food?"

And that's when Mate and I both lost it--hit men we are not.

And here's to another good year. I'm grateful to have made it through this last one--and so grateful for all the wonder life has brought me so far.