My Birthday

It was my birthday last Friday. My sister wanted to take the girls for an overnight as her gift to me. So Thursday afternoon (after our guest appearance on "Better Connecticut"; what a mess!) we dropped off the four younger girls, keeping Abby with us since someone needed to do the chores and making me do them all on my birthday wasn't really a gift.

More of an anti-gift, really.

The plan was that Friday, the 10th anniversary of my 29th birthday, Sam and I would spend the day in total relaxation together. He was going to make me breakfast, we would then lounge around til mid-morning. At that point we would do a few errands together, grab a cheap lunch, and go walk the beach. When we were ready we would retrieve the children.

You know what they say about the "best laid plans"...

At 8:05 AM, as Sam was about to start creating our breakfast, work called. He was out the door within the hour, promising to return by 4:30PM. Should have been my first clue. He never knows when he'll be home.

I ran the errands, alone. I came home and ate lunch, alone. I read my new library book, uninterrupted by a single fight or kid-drama. I took a nap. I bleached the bathrooms. I washed the kitchen floor. It was rather nice. A glimpse of what could be in about ten years.

Sam came home about 4:30 and offered to get the chores done (Abby wouldn't be home until 5:30 to do them). I suggested he merely do everything but the milking and leave that to her. She can milk everyone in about a half hour if she is focused. If she is making up songs, playing with the kittens, and loving on the goats while she milks them, it can take her up to an hour and a half to milk them all.

Abby got home and Sam shooed her quickly out and told her to focus. He told me he wanted to get the girls and "see if we could snag a free meal from mom's". This should have been my second clue. But he said it so nonchalantly, I didn't take notice.

So we drove to mom's, where, as I entered the house, I was greeted with shouts of surprise from my husband, children, sister, brother and his wife, uncle, and parents! The little stinkers had been planning this thing for over a week! I was truly surprised! Sam said he figured I would have thought something was up when he wanted to go to my mom's for dinner.

It was a wonderful birthday with much laughter and spice cake (YUM!) with mocha frosting (Double YUM!).