One Fun Birthday Weekend

Recipe for this topping coming soon...

I love birthdays and I think they are-slash-should be a big deal. The biggest! I mean, my mom and dad deliberately chose to bring me into the world (I may have been two of six who were not a pleasant surprise...ahem,  I was "planned"). Even if I only got to be a baby for four months before my younger brother was on his way (see what I mean by pleasant surprises?), I am still extremely grateful for my birth and the siblings that my parents gave me. And even if your parents didn't make a deliberate and thoughtful choice to conceive and birth you, you are a miracle! And that miracle should be celebrated. Every year. For at least a weekend. Maybe a week. I have the great luck of sharing my birthday weekend with Memorial Day...so it's extra long.




This year, I won't lie, had it's ups and downs. I have a seriously bad track record of having an emotional melt down on my birthday. Some heart-break-disappointing-let-down I don't know what,  but something usually gets to me. The Captain decided that this year was the year that streak would be broken. And break it, we did. I got all the tears out during the two days prior.

On Friday, my lovely co-workers surprised me with a double chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. It was really good and fun to share a tradition with a group of people who have "never even heard of eating cake and ice cream together." Crazy, right? You didn't know if was a tradition of the West (or maybe a Mormon thing??). Birthday cake and ice cream are like baseball and cracker jacks.

That night, at my request, we saw Moonrise Kingdom. Uh-mazing. Even the Captain, who was super skeptical (plus, this was the a couple days before my actual birthday, cue emotional melt-down which happened on the way to said film) really enjoyed it and thanked me for my great choice.  More on this at a later date. (So excited!)

The Captain took me to dinner on Saturday (Song Thai in Park Slope). He was pretty excited about it being a "two course meal" or "dinner AND dessert". This is kind of a big deal because he is the biggest supporter of my supposed sugar-free lifestyle (see previous post). Also, he doesn't have much of a sweet tooth. Dessert is a rarity in our family. Dessert was a surprise. We rode the train from Brooklyn and popped up in the East Village. When we got to our destination, the Captain had the, "Eh, eh, see? Didn't I do a good job" raise the eyebrows look on his face. We were at Victory Garden. This was the first for me, but hopefully not the last. He said, "Some people at work were talking about ice cream made from goat milk and I thought of you. Then someone said 'agave' and I knew you would love it." Oh, you. You do know me so well! I had the lavender honey. Why yes! Funny you should ask, it was sweetened with raw, local honey. I topped it off with some havla. I was in heaven. The Captain had the chocolate with coconut and granola. It was really chocolatey. He kept saying it reminded him of the chocolate in Europe. Good stuff.

Sunday started off right with church. I found a sub for my Sunday school class, so I got to relax a bit. Then we went to the 9/11 Memorial to pay our respects. It's already turning into a beautiful campus. Quite a moving spirit there. I highly recommend a visit if you find yourself in this great city. Beautiful. And it was a nice place for an impromptu photography lesson. Three of these are iphone photos. Can you find them?

Followed by a little family FaceTime. The best. Top to bottom, left to right. Lola was the first to come check it out. Singing the bday song to Miss Avery and me (she's the 26th, I'm the 27th). A little cello serenade from Collin. The many faces of Callum couldn't get enough of this face (he cried when he accidentally flipped the camera to face out and couldn't see my face anymore. I must have been a pretty entertaining show. Love his flirty smiles). Avery telling me all about the watermelon seeds she ate and is now growing one in her belly that's "this big". Tramp time.

Monday we celebrated the holiday Brooklyn style with a little stoop bbq. We feel really lucky to have made some really great friends here.