Birthday Trip

I started this post the week before the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I just couldn't post it then. Now that I know my family is safe, I thought I'd finish it up and post, so here you go.

It took nearly 3 months for anything to happen in my life to warrant a blog post. Interesting in MY eyes, no need to tell me if you find nothing in my life interesting. I would think, though, that celebrating 50 years of life is work taking note of, if not completely interesting.

My sweet husband is now a half a century old, 5 decades, middle aged. How old does that sound? I’m glad it’s him and not me! Lucky I married an older man so he could enter this ahead and school me on the ways of old age.

To honor this event, we planned 2 parties, one for his family and one for friends. That would be too many folks to have all at once, especially at my house. The family one was supposed to be a dessert party at my house. Although he heard us talking about it, he pretended he didn’t know, never really asking what we were talking about. I was excited because all of his brothers and their families and his dad were going to be able to come. The Wednesday before the party, he got a phone call that the brother of the wife of his brother #3 (Kenny is brother #4), had died. Brother #2 called to let him know. Kenny told #2 that he didn’t remember wife of #3 having a brother and neither did #2. #2 also said the funeral was Friday night at 6. Hmmm, Kenny thought, a strange time for a funeral. “HA!” he crowed. “I’m on to you! You’re planning a surprise party for me! There is no brother of wife of #3 and no Friday night funeral!” Because his brothers and dad didn’t want to spoil the party (in case it was a surprise), no one mentioned not being able to come to our house Friday. Long story short, there was a death (sadly), there was a funeral that we attended and there was no family party for Kenny. I promised him we would reschedule for a later time.

Fast forward to Sunday, the REAL surprise. Eddie flew in early, saying he needed to be here for a meeting in San Antonio and for the house closing. B was able to get off work and all the gang was able to meet for a surprise party at Joe T. Garcia’s. BUT…one of the friends forgot about it and scheduled to work with Kenny on a computer project at the SAME TIME. When Kenny called to tell me about the work, I quickly hung up and called Q. We did a lot of strategizing and came up with a plan. We (the fam and friends) went to Joe T’s and Q brought Kenny there, on the guise of meeting us for dinner.

Was he surprised! It was great! The weather was beautiful the patio was perfect and the food was great. What better way to honor a man whom I consider the best husband in the world than with his family, his closest friends and his favorite food. There is one better way. A surprise trip to Sonoma to tour wineries!

I wanted to surprise Kenny with a great gift for his birthday since it was a big one. The first surprise was the birthday party. A week later, we left on a Friday morning to fly standby to California. I thought I had it planned really well. I thought that since traffic is bad in SF and it's a popular tourist spot, it would be smarter to land in Sacramento. I listed us on the flight and rented a car.

Turns out my plans weren't so good. Overbooked by Thursday, we did the switcheroo with flights and car rentals and flew into SF. It looked great until...everyone (except Kenny) got sick. The baby was puny Thursday morning. Throwing up and some poopie issues. Then late Thursday night Meg started the puking part while I took on the other part. yea. Plugging on, we were up at 4:30 AM to get ready for the flight. Eddie rode with us to the airport to bring the car home. As we were driving I noticed that he had emptied out my school book bag. He said he was getting queasy but would let us know if we needed to pull over. He didn't quite make it. It sounded like someone turned on a faucet in the back seat. We did pull over, threw away the book bag and let Eddie finish his purge at a gas station. When we got to the airport, we didn't even hug him goodbye. We trotted off, leaving him at the curb, puking his guts up.

That was the worst of it for us, although I didn't get to eat all I wanted since I was a little cautious. San Francisco and Sonoma were beautiful and the wineries were so much fun. It was a great birthday trip for Kenny and a very relaxing time for both of us.

Sonoma countryside