Birthdaying

This week I got to have a birthday, thanks to my MOM! Yay! Although it wasn't a big landmark year, my friends and family made an extra effort to make me feel special. It started with an enthusiastic gift of "ten pansies" hand pick from this little guy (he even left two inches of stem so they could go in a vase):

I took it easy all morning, pampering myself with a hot bath and the latest People. Then, when I thought the day couldn't possibly get better, I met up with my besties at a very swanky sushi joint where they treated me to lunch. We had some delicious special rolls and some not so delicious Pad Thai but finished strong with a fantastic fried ice cream.

I spent the sunny afternoon with my family unsuccessfully shopping for a new bike for Lucy. Then, that evening, we headed to Larry's Pizza for dinner-- to help you understand my relationship with this restaurant let me provide you with an analogy: if my life was a TV show, it would be called "Larry's" and the theme song would go something like this,

"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name."

We met up with friends. We ate pizza. We chatted. We had better than usual service provided by the CARTI girls. We laughed. I opened some lovely presents.

We had a Hostess Cake (ala Billy). My favorite part was the Snoball crust.

Then home to open more presents-- I'm not too proud to say that I may have purchased some of these for myself and then asked Billy to wrap them. I have a good surprised face, huh?

It does, however, sincerely surprise me how generous and thoughtful my friends and family are. I know that when you're an adult, birthdays aren't suppose to be as fun as they were when you were a kid because you don't get piles of presents and a big party and people generally just don't remember. But I feel so lucky to have people in my life who went out of their way to make me feel like a really special kid this year. And, if you are curious, here is a small sampling of my pile: