The morning after...

Well, the fourth decade of my life is going well so far - I guess it's still early :-). I had such a great birthday yesterday! Thank you all for the wonderful cards (paper and e), phone calls, text messages, voicemails, emails, jewelry, flowers, hugs, and kisses.

I did go to work yesterday which was meeting after meeting, then somehow the word got around about my birthday and I think the IS department planned their phone calls all about 2 minutes apart for 15 minutes straight. Funny, funny. Mark came up to take me to lunch and right when he arrived, I was stranded in a building across the street from the Helipad while they brought a patient in. Not sure why they didn't shut the blades off, but it takes 8-10 security guards to block off the street and keep everyone inside. Thank goodness for cell phones, Mark was able to pull around close enough to watch the helicopter take off 20 minutes later - at least he went home with a good story. We went to my favorite Greek restaurant "Samos" and when I got back to work, Mark's flowers arrived.

Mark made rockfish, fresh green beans, mushroom rice, bread, and strawberries for dinner. We had so much cake left after Matthew's birthday last weekend that I took a piece of that and stuck a candle in the top - thank goodness I had some help blowing out the candle...

Here's another photo with the boys and their Snoopy and 'stock card:

I promised that I would come back to the other items in the Taco Villa box from Tuesday night. There was the matter of the card that made mention of flying around on a broomstick, and then there was this lovely T-shirt that my brother made multiple trips to get...

You have to understand the story to understand the T-Shirt and this part is PG-13 for language. When my brother and his girlfriend were visiting over Thanksgiving, we took them to the aquarium in Baltimore. We hadn't been there for several years and the aquarium had several new additions. It was really crowded when we got there and after negotiating 5 floors of people feeling like sardines, I think we were all ready to get out. We got all the way to the top of the building to the tropical rainforest section and I had walked ahead of the group while the rest stopped on a foot bridge to look at something. I turned around to see a bird flying from behind them. It landed on a branch above and proceeded to poop. From there it was all slow motion for me, realizing what was about to happen, calculating the odds of it hitting a family member, seeing the poop falling, running to push everyone out of the way, then back to regular speed as I see Matthew look up to determine what just hit him.

Yes, the bird pooped on Matthew and it hit him in the neck and started to run down the inside of his shirt. Absolutely gross, but after a day of touring, all we could do was laugh! What are the odds?

So the shirt in the above picture depicts the poop of many different birds in commemoration of the day we had together in Baltimore. Unfortunately, one of the poops on the shirt is from the "American Robin". My brother got the last laugh on this one as the boys made several cracks about my poop being on a shirt and it went downhill from there the rest of the night! Just remember, revenge is sweet!

Shirt and all, a very sweet birthday!

Where in the WORLD is Taco Villa?

Well, some of you just won't understand this post and that's ok.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away, there was a little girl named Robin whose favorite fast food restaurant was Taco Villa. Over the grade school, middle school, high school, and even college years, Taco Villa created many fond memories. Saturday lunches with her mom, late night snacks with her friends, a place to meet her brother and his family for lunch, even her Dad had a taco or two. After Robin moved away from home, each trip back meant dragging her family to Taco Villa to experience it all over again. Robin eventually married and subjected husband Mark to the same tradition. (Mark subjected Robin to a few food traditions too, but that is a story for another time).

So after being away from Taco Villa for 17+ years, Robin came home from work on her last day of being a thirty-something to this....

Thank you Corwyn and Linda, what a great surprise! I'll discuss the other items in the box tomorrow.

Lavatory Expedition

So last night, Matthew went to Mark after dinner and whispered something quietly. Mark promptly responded "Matthew it's ok if the toilet gets stopped up, we can fix it!" I don't think Matthew was happy about the announcement, but one shot with the plunger and his dillema was resolved.

I took the boys for bath last night and I was discussing with Matthew how that happens to everyone at some point, but in asking more questions, I discovered that he had tried to flush the toilet twice without letting the tank refill. I started to try to explain when I realized I needed a visual aid.

While Andrew was taking a shower, Matthew and I went to Mom & Dad's bathroom (aka the cleanest toilet in the house) to discuss the finer points of toilet architecture. We took the back off the toilet and Matthew flushed so he could see the water go out of the tank, the flap close, and the tank refill. We were watching, listening, and looking. Then he flushed again. I left him with strict instructions not to touch anything while I went to help Andrew.

Matthew repeated the flush/refill cycle a few more times and then he came to find me. I told him that I was getting Andrew out of the shower and for him to please find something quiet to do for a few minutes. In the meantime, Mark came upstairs and I warned him the back may still be off the toilet in our bathroom due to our investigation. After I got Andrew out of the shower and jammies on, I went to find Matthew.

Matthew and I met in the hall and he was carrying a pad of paper (2 for $1 last weekend), a pen, and a tape measurer. He turns around the pad of paper and says "look what I did!" The photos tell the rest...

Star Student of the Week

So after the party, we spent most of Sunday cleaning up the house, putting together toys, and oh yes, the poster due tomorrow since Matthew is Star Student of the Week (each week in his class one student gets to tell about themselves, they go by number and it just so happened that Matthew's week is the week following his birthday). Luckily, he started on filling out his "stars" earlier this week.

My name is...

My favorite thing in school is...

I am proud of myself because...

The one thing I like about myself is...

So we printed some pictures today, tacked on his reading award from last year, and he is VERY happy with his finished product. He has to stand up in front of the class tomorrow and tell about some of the pictures. You can bet he will discuss the photo in the lower right of him and Andrew lightsaber fighting in the yard last summer! He decided he was proud of himself for "not having to move his clip in class" aka not getting in trouble. He also decided he liked himself for "being a good big brother" so we included one of my favorite photos from several years back of Matthew figuring out how to turn on Andrew's swing seat (HIGH of course!) Speed, we love speed!

the Smart Waiter and the Ninja party...

So we made it to Carraba's Friday evening for Matthew's birthday dinner. After telling the lady holding the door, the hostess, the lady that seated us, and our waiter twice, Matthew had all but given up that he was going to get a special surprise for his birthday. After asking if we wanted dessert and us saying No Thank You, the waiter returned from behind Matthew with this bowl of ice cream, caramel topping, and candied pecans with a candle on top. Was Matthew ever surprised. We sang happy birthday quietly and snapped a few photos. This is my favorite.

And then there was the small matter of the Ninja birthday party - Saturday 2:30 - 4:30 pm. Matthew decided on the gymnastics place we have been going to on Friday and Saturday evenings for his party. We had 24 kids from his class, neighbors, and ex-neighbors and everyone had a great time. The "coaches" at the gym were great and kept an eye on the kids, led games, served food and cake, and cleaned up! 277 photos later...ok, I won't bore you with all of them at once.

Here are some highlights...

I was so thrilled when I picked up his birthday cake. "Tweety" the cake decorator at Safeway called last Saturday to confirm why I wanted a large grey circle in the middle of a white frosted cake. When I explained we were going with the Ninja Turtle theme, she immediately got on board with the manhole cover and purple, red, blue, and orange streamers. With Matt's b-day gift of mini turtles on top as a surprise, the cake was stunning and equally tasty.

Most all of the kids (except the girls !?!) put on a forest green T-shirt and Ninja colored waist tie to get in the turtle spirit!

While Matthew held court at one end of the table, Andrew managed a gaggle of older girls at the other end (funny, he fit right in!). We didn't have time to open gifts at the party so we brought it all home and spent the evening opening all the great gifts. Happy Birthday Matthew! Happy taking off all the twist ties and building Lego toys Mom & Dad!

Happy 7th Birthday to Matthew!

Oh it's sooooo hard to believe Matthew is 7 today. Although it's equally hard to forget since he's been on a countdown since Christmas. Here's our new after dinner fun and Matthew's last day as a 6 year old...DOG PILE!!!

Matthew was very specific last night about how he wanted his birthday to go today:

1. Andrew should wake him up when we were ready (Andrew woke him up at 7 am and all we heard was "there are streamers and one of your presents isn't even wrapped!)

2. Mom and Dad should "pop out and yell surprise" (Mom and Dad slowly rolled out of bed and said ugh, 7 am ???)

3. Open presents and he wanted Andrew to help him (First we looked at pictures from his baby scrapbook while Dad walked the dog and then he sort of let Andrew help).

4. Go to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch (check)

5. Play hockey with Dad in the backyard (check)

6. Go to Carraba's for dinner (that's the plan)

Here are a few photos from our day so far - Happy Birthday big guy!