Birthday Week

What a difference a year makes!  This time last year, I was engulfed in a constant sea of moving madness.  It was all packing, getting the ridiculous buyers’ list of inspection to-do’s done and yet still somehow (sorta-somewhat-maybe?) functioning as a mother to three in the midst of little league season to-boot! 

 

My birthday is on Friday.  Last year’s birthday was spent in a serious fog of stress and tears.  I remember Mom coming over in the morning to watch Kayli so that I could get last minute packing done before the buyer’s came to do their RE-inspection (ON my birthday – the nerve)!  We left the next day for Memorial Day weekend in Port Ludlow and spent that weekend stressed out about the inspection HERE, signing documents on-line and sending them back and forth to our realtors.  Then we left Sunday night, for one last night in our home, got up early on Memorial Day Monday, picked up our moving truck and the real work began…what a difference a year makes.

 

This year on my birthday all I really want to do is have normalcy.  The kids and I will go to Rebecca’s for the day where I know – as usual – I’ll get spoiled by an amazing gourmet lunch and such a fun time.  This is actually pretty standard for our playdate’s: delicious, gourmet, home-made lunch with a glass of wine.  Check!  The kids will be so happy to play together as during the schoolyear the boys don’t have as much time to do that. Then, we’ll come home Friday night to our usual, normal Friday night plans.  We’ll have Family Movie Night with the kids and do something easy for dinner.  The kids go to bed, Mike has his weekly on-line computer-game playing time with the guys, and I either take a bubble bath and read, paint my nails and watch a movie or chill in my pajamas and happily waste hours on such time-sucking marvelous black-holes-of-time as houzz.com or pinterest.  Mikey got me Les Mis on Blu-Ray so I’m thinking I may watch that again.  Yes, I’m looking forward to having just a normal Friday night for my birthday.  Mike asked if I wanted to do something else, but honestly, a quiet night at home sounds perfect. That must make me officiall OLD.

 

This is the first Memorial Day weekend in a while that we’re not heading to Port Ludlow.  I was just there with the kiddos over spring break and, with baseball in full swing, we have been going-going nonstop on the weekends.  A three day weekend at home to chillax-slash-be-productive sounds magical.  And next week, holy cow! Let the fun begin!

 

Monday (Memorial Day): we’re having our friends Cathi and her son Nicholas for dinner.  Cathi’s hubby Chris is deployed to Qatar or some middle easterny place like that, and we’re honored to get to spend Memorial Day with their fam.  Tuesday night: I host book club.  I’m planning on making one of my very favorite dinners for the girls! (‘Purple pasta’ – grilled chicken and pasta with red grapes in port, cream and gorgonzola.  Rich and delicious!).  Wednesday: we have a baseball game so it’ll be easy dinner night.  Thursday: I get to go play Bunco with the girls (a bunch of super fun moms that I’ve gotten to know from baseball and the boys’ new school).  Friday: yet another baseball game.  Saturday morning: baseball game followed by my super lovely, dear friend Katherine and her 3 year old daughter arriving for a three day visit!!  Katherine is my birthday buddy (hers is two days before mine) and we’ve spent a few of them together…especially when her hubby Dan (who is in the Special Forces) is deployed.  We’ve met up in Chicago and gone to Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, she’s come here a few times and one of my very faves was when I visited them in Monterey and Katherine and I dined with Clint Eastwood (sort of) in Carmel.  Ahhh, lovely, lovely memories and so many more yet to come!