Saturday, July 05, 2008

Happy Birthday to Me

My birthday this year started out pretty low key. The kids and I had our last day of Girl Scout day camp. I was helping with the preschoolers, so I had Josh and Liesie with me, while the older kids had their own groups. We went straight from day camp to Mischa's piano lesson. I was thinking we might have time to take Caleb to karate, but Perry said that he would be coming home early so that we could go out to dinner at a decent hour (especially important since my birthday was on a Friday this year).
I came home and jumped through the shower really quick to rinse off since day camp was 100% outside and we had our hike and hay ride that day. I asked Perry what I should wear, and he suggested something a little nicer (nice capris and nice shirt) instead of my normal jean capris and t-shirt since it was my birthday.
We loaded the kids in the car, and I did think it a little strange that Perry didn't ask me where I wanted to go, but I figured after almost 14 years together, he's realized I will never have an answer to that question, lol. He turned left out of our subdivision, which was another weird thing, since most of the restaurants we go to are to the right. After he passed the main road to the mall, I realized there was really nothing up the road we were on except eventually my friend's house. The thought flashed through my mind that perhaps he had set something up with her, but I dismissed it because I knew that her father-in-law was in town. When we turned down her street, I got really confused. We pulled in front of her house, and by now I was intrigued. Perry had never done anything like this before. We ended up dropping the kids off with her (her husband and father-in-law were having a boys' night out) and we headed off to a movie. We saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (it was an okay movie-it was too heavy on computer effects for an Indiana Jones movie and the ending was too hokey). We then went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I had received some gift cards as a thank you from my Brownie troop this year and Perry snuck them out of my pile and had them ready to go. Oh. My. Goodness. I had only eaten at the Cheesecake Factory once before for a Girls' Night Out and had gotten a Caesar salad and chocolate cake (both of which were good), but I was excited to try a more substantial meal. We chose the potstickers to start with. I had never had potstickers before our Cub Scout Blue and Gold in March. They were so good I decided to try them again. I think if it wasn't my birthday, Perry and I would've been in a fight to the death over the last one, lol. They were sooooo good. We dipped our bread in the sauce to get every last drop. I couldn't decide between steak or shrimp so I got both the steak Diane and shrimp scampi. The portions were huge! The scampi was favourite. The sauce wasn't the butter sauce I was used to, but more of a cream sauce. It was very good with the mashed potatoes served with the steak. The steak was very good, too, and I loved the mushrooms in it. I couldn't decide between the lemon torte cake or the chocolate cake, but ended up choosing the chocolate cake. Very yummy.
I hadn't had a call all day from my dad, and by the time dinner was over, I decided to give him a little memory nudge, lol. Before we went into the restaurant, I had noticed the back cover of my phone wasn't on straight, so Perry fixed it for me. Unfortunately, we hadn't noticed that the phone had turned off when we did this. We walked out of the restaurant and I flipped my phone open. I saw that I had a voice mail and was surprised to hear that I had two messages. When my dad turned out to be the first message, I couldn't figure out who the second message could be from, since everyone I expected to hear from that had my cell number had already called me. When I heard my friend's voice, there was a loud crying in the background. All she said was that she had a little boy on her lap with a bleeding head wound. He had been jumping on the bed and hit the dresser and he was crying and all 7 of the other kids were crying and freaking out because of the blood. She had called her husband, who was at the store down the street, to come help, but she thought it might need stitches. We were about the same distance away as her husband and she ended up calling only five minutes before we left the restaurant, so she didn't have too long without help. Her husband had just opened the popsicle box to give one to Josh (I had figured it was him since he's my big bed jumper). Poor Caleb was having the hardest time- he blamed himself for not being there to help protect Josh. The gash wasn't as bad as I had expected, but it was definately calling for a trip to the ER. Perry took off with him and I put the kids to bed. He left for the ER around 10:00 (the pediatric urgent care less than a mile from our house closed at 9-grr). I spent my time reading my birthday present- a book on doing genealogy research on the internet. Perry called every so often to update, but around 2:00 a.m. I gave up and went to bed. They pulled in at 4:00. Josh ended up with 4 stitches. Both he and Perry didn't wake up until almost noon.
I'm just about to swear off on holidays and birthdays. Between my accident on Perry's birthday, a truck backing up on Perry's car a few days before Mother's Day, then this, I was afraid to see what Father's Day had to hold. Caleb reminded me that I should've expected something, since my birthday was on Friday the 13th.
Here is Josh's present to me, a few days after the accident:

1 comment:

Real said...

You guys definitely aren't having a very good track record with holidays! Maybe for Memorial Day you should just all wrap yourselves in bubble wrap and stay home.

Glad he's okay!