Back to Back Birthdays

It would be shameful if I let the month of January end without highlighting our birthdays. Granted, they aren't as exciting as the kids birthdays, but I hear we are getting wiser. (Ha ha, only a fool would believe that.)

My birthday is always first. (Can't help it.) Tyler spent time sequestered with the kids working on a project on the days preceding my birthday. It took them a few hours to finish whatever it was, so I was excited to see it.

I woke up early on my birthday to go to boot camp and saw this on the table. (To the sweetest mom, it says.)

When I got home, June had made me breakfast and everyone was awake and ready for me to enjoy my present.

Tyler said I wasn't supposed to get up early and see my gift. "What, the candy jar? It took you 2 hours to fill that thing?" Turns out there were designs etched into the glass that I hadn't seen because of the candy. Can you see the cute owl?

And the heart with 'Mom' inside?

It was a very sweet gift....they know me well.  In fact, even Robyn loaned me some socks for the day.

Naturally I had my buddy with me for the day. Pearl and I like a selfie now and then.

The only thing I had planned for my birthday was to find the headquarters for the Google Fiber trucks. I know this may sound strange. When I drop off Ivory at gymnastics three times a week, I see a lot of Google Fiber trucks going the same direction. I count how many I see each day and my record so far, was fifteen.

I thought that for my birthday, I would follow the trucks and then count them all in their den. (So to speak.) The girls were pretty hip on the idea. So we loaded in the car and began our search for Google Fiber Mecca, as I call it.

It didn't take us long to find a truck. (I see at least one every time we go to gymnastics.) We had bets on how far we would have to follow the truck, but it wasn't far. Less than two minutes on the trail, we came to GF Mecca.

There was a large gate that was closed as we coasted to a stop behind our prize. There was a phone number displayed on the gate to call to enter. I figured the guy in front of us would do that. In the meantime, I was worried that another truck would pull up behind us and trap us. Sure enough, another truck appeared, but he just went around.

When the gate finally opened, I wasn't sure if I should enter as well, but the girls were suddenly screaming, "Follow Him!" "Go mom!" "Get in there!" "Don't let them get away!!" So I gunned the car and followed them right into the compound.

(I would like to note that this was scary for me. I'm not really a rule breaker and I was pretty sure I was trespassing on private property.)

But oh...the trucks. They were everywhere. We stopped and asked someone if it was okay if we looked around for a minute. He said he would check with his supervisor. In the meantime, I let the kids out to look at the trucks. They were madly running around trying to find the lowest or highest number on the trucks.

This is, of course, when the supervisor came out and told us that we couldn't be there and he needed us to leave as rapidly as possible. (Thought so.)

Monkeys were gathered and we departed in haste, but we had found GF Mecca. I have no desire to return because I have some guilt associated with that place, but I'm happy to report that I smashed my record, counting more than 50 trucks.

It is early in the year and already I am doing questionable things. (Clearly not one year wiser.)

In the evening, I made myself some lemon-blueberry bread instead of a cake. (There were many offers of assistance, but I was fine doing it myself. After all, I didn't have to make breakfast, and June was making dinner as well.)

Thirty-six years under my belt. Not too shabby.

Now to the big man on campus. It is convenient that Tyler's birthday is five days after mine. I never forget it. (Although I'm pretty sure I wouldn't forget it no matter when it happened.)

Same kind of story as my birthday. We tend to have early mornings with present opening since no one wants to wait. Once Tyler was up we bombarded him with presents. Robyn had been doing some princess tracings. She did one for Dad with his favorite princess.

You need a little back story for this next gift. There is a gym at Tyler's work. In the past, he hasn't used it much, but a friend of his said that they should start lifting weights together. Brett said that he was going to make Tyler into Captain America. (I think this is in reference to the movie where Steve Rogers starts out as a skinny guy, but gets super buff---although admittedly not by normal methods.) Tyler has always had nice arms so I don't really think of him as scrawny, but he could probably add some muscle.

When they go and work out, Tyler calls it his Captain America time. You can imagine we took advantage of that for his birthday. First, the shirt, complete with muscles.

And then original art from me and the girls. (They did a great job helping me paint the Captain America shield, including stickers and mod podge.) Tyler seemed to like the finished product.

Other fun gifts included a book, written by Ivory. It was called the 'D' Book.

She supervised while Dad read it. It was pretty funny with lots of good D words and definitions.

Tyler's last gift was a set of new sheets. We have never had nice sheets before. We always buy sheets on sale or get the jersey knit kind that somehow stop fitting the mattress after a few washes. Now we have honest to goodness, 400 count, grown-up sheets. 'Bout time since we've been married 15 years.

Tyler's birthday was also celebrated with laser tag festivities, that can be seen again here.

We haven't gotten around to his 'cake' yet. He requested brownies, but we still had brownies left over from FHE on his birthday. It didn't make sense to make more, and I keep forgetting to make them now. His candle shot will have to be in a later post. But I will get it...mark my words.

And with that, I leave you. Happy February in an hour or so.