Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Quite the Celebration!

My husband did good.  He made turning 30 quite fun.  Sadly, I did not take a single picture of my entire 30th birthday celebration :(  I am quite bummed about that.  So, instead of showing you fun pictures of my birthday celebrations, I am just going to tell you about it...in great detail ;)  This way I will have it in blogger world forever to look back to someday and remember the good old days of only being 30. 

The day before my birthday Jay surprised me by taking me out to dinner at Red Robin and our families were there.  I am very difficult to surprise.  I think this is because I think waaaayyyyy too much, I do all of our money and pay all the bills, and I am home all day with the kids.  I wasn't completely surprised and did wonder if that would be happening.  But I didn't know for sure and I didn't know anything until that afternoon.  So it was a complete surprise until that day.  We showed up at dinner to see our family their already.  We enjoyed a nice dinner and I was spoiled with some great gifts.  And of course, Red Robin sang to me and I got to enjoy some ice cream.  And my burger was free!  Free food is a perfect gift to me!

The next day, my actual birthday, started off very normal.  I was home with the kids in the morning.  They slept in decently, which I was very thankful for.  I would have preferred 9 but I won't complain about 8!  I had made my favorite cinnamon rolls the night before so I baked those and enjoyed the deliciousness of those for breakfast with the kids.  Jay was even able to stop by and enjoy them with us.  After breakfast my mom, the kids, and I went up to Woodburn for a little bit and just wandered around.  She was shopping for shoes and I was just window shopping.  I didn't want to spend my birthday money yet because of what was coming up that weekend (more on that in a minute).  My mom took us out for lunch after shopping at Panera.  We enjoyed a great lunch and the kids were surprisingly pretty good at lunch.  I am choosing to forget about Carter saying he needed to go poop and then deciding after sitting on the public toilet that he actually in fact did not need to go.  Ugh.  I hate that.  After lunch we came home and did quite time.  Both kids actually napped and I had some quiet time.  I chose to do one of the things that I love to do in my free time (the little free time that I do have) and that was watch tv!  I promised Jay (more like told Jay) that I was not going to clean on my birthday :)  Jay did tell me that we had plans for that evening so I knew we were doing something but this time I had no idea what we were doing.  He managed to keep all of his plans for that evening a total surprise.  His mom came over to babysit about 6 and we left for the evening.  The first stop: Dutch Bros for a smoothie.  Thankfully I told them it was my birthday and I got mine free.  Again, I like free food ;)  We took our smoothies on over to Roadhouse and played mini golf.  Jay and I enjoy doing that together.  We had a great time.  After leaving Roadhouse I could tell we had a little time to waste.  He obviously had something planned at a specific time.  So we went down to Macy's and wandered around so that I could look for perfume, one of the items I was planning on buying with birthday money.  His final plan for our evening was dinner and a movie at Northern Lights.  This was perfect.  We hadn't been to a movie in forever, literally so it was a treat!  We both enjoyed wraps and chips and a cute movie, Admission.  It was a nice night and he did exactly what I could only hope for, plan things out in advance and try to surprise me.  Good job babe!  I enjoyed our evening so much!

And then my birthday was over.  I always have a day of let down after my birthday.  I am a birthday girl and I love celebrating birthday's, including mine.  But thankfully I knew we had the weekend to look forward to.  We had planned a night in Portland for my birthday this year which could not have been any more perfect!  I know I have said this a few times to people but last year Jay was puking on my birthday because of the stomach flu and the year before I was miscarrying.  Like, literally, we found out that I was pregnant the morning of my birthday and realized by early afternoon that I was miscarrying.  I felt very due for a good birthday with nothing bad happening.  What is funny though is that Madelynn was actually sick on my birthday this year...so sick that I took her in to the doctor's office in the morning before going shopping with my mom.  I forgot to mention that part of our day.  She had a stomach virus that was just not making her feel very well.  Thankfully though she was okay to enjoy the day, even though she didn't feel great.  So back to our Portland plans.  After last year's drama on my birthday, I told Jay that for my 30th we were doing something big.  So we planned a night away in Portland, without the kids.  Our weekend was unbelievably perfect!

We left about 11 last Friday morning.  My mom came to stay with the kids.  This was our first night away since Madelynn was born.  She is 14 months old so I would say we were overdue!  We headed out and went straight up to Bridgeport Village to have lunch and do a little shopping.  We ate at PF Changs which is one of our favorite places to eat!  We shared the lettuce wrap appetizer and then shared one plate of rice and spicy chicken.  It was delightful.  So so good!  We didn't want to eat a huge lunch because we were planning on a big dinner in downtown Portland.  We shopped a little at Bridgeport (just Crate and Barrel) and then went over to DSW shoes.  I actually left that monsterous shoe store with no shoes.  Crazy.  We stopped at Old Navy a little ways down I-5 and spent my gift cards there.  Then we headed into downtown Portland to go check out our hotel.  We stayed at the Hilton which was literally in downtown and just a block or two aways from Pioneer Square and the mall there.  Perfect!  We checked into our hotel, which was great and then hit the streets shopping.  This was not Jay's favorite part of the trip but I had birthday money to spend and he knew it was coming!  I shopped at for quite a while and I found some amazing deals at H&M!  Love that store!  We stopped and enjoyed a smoothie from starbucks and sat outside and people watched.  After shopping for a few hours we went back to our hotel to freshen up for dinner.  We were able to skype with the kids too which was great.  Madelynn actually cried when she saw us which broke my heart but I loved seeing them.  We loved getting away but missed our kids so much too.  We ended up eating dinner at Henry's Tavern which was a few blocks away from our hotel.  Of course I decided I needed to wear tall wedges to dinner and it poured the entire walk to dinner.  Thankfully I had my big rain coat.  But it was quite the walk in the rain and heels.  It was so worth it though!  Dinner was delicious and the atmosphere was just perfect!  Thanks Hollie for the recommendation!  After dinner we went to our hotel to get into warm and comfortable clothes and then walked down to the waterfront where the Rose Festival was going on.  Our only mistake about this weekend was that we paid the $14 to get into the Rose Festival.  NOT WORTH IT!!  We literally walked from one end to the other and then left.  It was like setting our money on fire.  But we stuck around and walked along the water until the AMAZING fireworks show that evening at 10.  Unbelievable!  We were literally standing along the rail on the waterfront sidewalk that looks right over the river and the fireworks were shot from a barge in the river straigh out from us.  Amazing!  It was by far the best fireworks display we have ever seen!  Salem and Stayton have always done decent shows but now will seem like nothing since seeing this display.  Seriously, amazing!  We would highly recommend going someday!  Then we got to walk back to our hotel and go to sleep without putting two little ones to bed and enjoy a blissful nights sleep!  It was so nice to just climb in bed with no responsibilities.  And we got to wake on our own.  No alarm clocks and no little foot prints of a cute little boy climbing in bed with us.  I wouldn't change a thing about my life but every once in a while we all need a nights sleep that doesn't get interrupted a little too early because of kids.

After a wonderful nights sleep and waking up at 9 we got ready for the day and headed out for breakfast.  We were hoping to try Mother's Bistro but it was way too long of a wait.  So we just wandered around until we found a cute little bagel shop.  We ate our simple but delicious breakfast out at a table on the sidewalk with great weather!  After breakfast we packed up our stuff, checked out of our hotel and headed over to Lloyd Center for more shopping.  My poor husband!  He got a little sick of shopping but I had a blast!  Once most of my money was spent we parted ways with the mall shopping and headed over to IKEA.  Before shopping though we enjoyed lunch at Red Robin.  This was the only point in our entire weekend that we were both getting a little grumpy, and just for a few moments.  The parking lot was packed, people were being dumb (sorry!), I had a headache, and Jay was trying to get over all the shopping he just had to endure.  We were both better when we sat down for lunch and got some water and food.  Then we shopped IKEA and found some great things for our house and then headed home.  It was the perfect weekend!  I so enjoyed spending some alone time with my man.  He is pretty special to me and often that gets pushed aside during the business of life at home with two kids.  We need these weekends a couple times a year. 

It was the perfect birthday.   



   

No comments:

Post a Comment