Turning 27

I woke up on my birthday morning to Eleanore's loud voice singing happy birthday straight into my face. Any other day I would have mumbled something about "go play in the play room, Mommy is still sleeping", but- it sounded especially nice this time.



For breakfast I had a bright green smoothie. A whole quart of it.

I had been wanting to go to a nearby lake for awhile, so our plan for the day was to pack up a picnic lunch, go for a drive, and go play.



It was really nice to just go for a drive. We almost never do that. Theres really nowhere to go around here. The last time we did it was for a bust of a doctors appointment down in some craphole bank, 2 hours away.

But anyways, so we packed up and we went...



Really?! We drove all this way, and the park isn't even open?!

The worst part was, we didn't see those little dinky orange signs (because we were too busy looking at the lake and the playground, as we pulled in), so we got all the way unloaded, sunblock applied, and then ...greeted by a nice old fella with a hard hat, and told that we had to leave.

Devistation.

Can you imagine the cries from the babies? It was a waterfall effect. First Eleanore, then Charlie, then Evelyn. All three of them.

No fear though, miserable children. Our day won't be a complete waste. Pretty sure we saw a boat ramp a little ways back. We can still have some fun!




The boat launch definately wasn't my first choice, for a birthday picnic, but we made the best of it! We took the kids down onto the floating dock (Charlie hated having to hold our hands), and we splashed our feet into the mucky brown water below.

It was around 90 degrees, so the metal was hot and lightly burnt our skin when we made contact. We bribed the babies off of the dock with promises of unlimited amounts of grapes and strawberries. While I was turning Evelyn around in her stroller, we were held hostage by a giant jumping spider, who seemed to mirror our every move. I eventually ran past him, realizing that he probably wasn't out to get me, and the two of us made it out alive. On the way up the ramp, which I had to walk up backwards (and kept imagining the horror of the baby falling out of her stroller as she was facing the water), we saw multiple sets of dragonflies, most of which were connected.

So I hauled Miss Evelyn up the hill, and met up with the rest of the gang up a the picnic table that we had parked by, for a feast of fruit (I use the word feast a lot now).



There were no shaded covers, and after a couple of bites of fresh strawberries, some of which hit the ground, I noticed a tickle on my toes, and looked down to see a vicious colony of ants, bring war upon us and our birthday lunch.

The combination of the angry ant army, lack of shade, and massive spider web that hogged the entire right bench of the table, moved our picnic into the back of the car.



So clearly, this wasn't turning out to be a walk in the park like I had imagined it to be. We went from potentially sitting on a blanket under a nice tree by a lake, to eating out of the back of the van, with ant bites on our feet and dock burns on our legs.

But it was okay.

We tried not to let on that we were dissapointed, because the kids had forgotten about the park that they didn't get to go to, and when it was time to go, it was time to go. Lets get the hell out of here.



But first the baby had to eat, so she got to have her picnic in the front seat, by the air conditioner. Some nice strawberry milk, heee.

On the way home (and the baby had gone back into her carseat before we drove off, by the way), Christopher and I got into a little spat of a fight, and ended up not talking the entire way. Both Charlie and Evelyn fell asleep, and Eleanore sat quietly looking out her window, watching the bushes and junkyards breeze by. It was entirely too quiet, which made it all the more awkward for me and Christopher (who was only mad at me, because I was mad at him).

See what had happened was, he did the typical husband thing, and bought a last minute gift that had zero thought and meaning put into it, and presented it to me at the end of our broken picnic. Not only was that bad timing on his part, but, I had specifically told him a few days before that, that I did not want a meaningless waste of money gift (which hes notoroious for, example: season 2 of Dawson's Creek purchased at walmart at nearly midnight the night before my birthday). If he hadn't gotten me something in advance (my birthday is the same day every year, its not like it jumped out of nowhere), then I would have prefered nothing at all.

Aaaand of course, he didn't listen. I won't even bother telling you what he gave me. I will tell you though, that I did the typical angry wife thing, and pretended to like it, until I had thought about it silently for all of 10 minutes, and then boiled over in an explotion of "Why?! Why didn't you listen to me?! I can't believe you!".

To be honest. I was being extremely selfish about it. I shut my mouth and threw my speechless tantrum until we got home, where I boiled over two more times, before sitting down to color with my little girl, and realizing that life is too dang short for me to be pissed off at my poor husband, who was just trying to do something nice for me.



So we colored kitties and puppies, and I said I was sorry to my husband.

And its not that I wanted an extravagant birthday gift, its more that- I was hoping that if he were to take the time to pick something out for me, it would be something that he put some real effort into, ya know? Ok I'm done.

Okay, and it did help, that Christopher made up for it all with some raw chocolate bars.



Thats right. HELLO chocolate, oh how I've missed you.

I haven't had chocolate in almost a month. Half a bar was all I could stand, and boy was it heavenly. Raw chocolate has a dulled down flavor, compared to what I'm used to, but at this point in my diet- flavors of everything are intensified, and delicious. Now that my tongue tastes things for what they are, rather than what they were when they were covered in salt or other seasonings and flavorings, its all so much more vibrant. The chocolate was awesome.

After doing a little of this and a little of that, dinner time rolled around, and rather than having a birthday dinner, we had a birthday cheesecake!



It broke the rules of proper food combining a little bit, and put together the best birthday cake of all time.

And you know I had to lick that springform clean.



Yeah. Is there anything I can really say to deliver the emotions that go along with eating something that good?

"MOM! I really like the crust! The crust is sooo goood!", Eleanore said over and over again.

Charlie licked the plate.

...it was beyond words.

The Recipe can be found here. The only changes I made were to the crust. I used macadamia nuts instead of pecans. And no salt.

Immediately following dinner, I said "ok get your shoes on. We need to go on a walk".

So a walk we went on.

There were cactus and flowers, sunshine and sandals.


The kids found a fallen street light, and thought it made the perfect horse.


Curbs turned into balance beams.


And so did bricks.
Our walk lasted a long time. We stayed out until the misquitoes started biting, and the sun was going down.

I talked on the phone with my both of my Grandparents, and my parents, I kicked some rocks around with my open toed feet, and I kissed a wonderful birthday goodnight.



27 is going to be a good year.