Birthday....It's Official

It's official.  I'm in my 30's now.  You may have been under the impression that "in your 30's" starts at 31. Or maybe even 30.  Well, not in my world, it doesn't.  I decided to give myself a grace year (or two), and only now will I grudgingly admit to being a thirty-something.

If I had to turn 32, at least I got to celebrate with a fun birthday week!

Two of my absolute best friends, Steph and Eryn, took me to dinner one night.
We had tons of fun, not to mention, a very overeager waiter who apparently wanted to grow a ponytail and dye it orange.

(He actually told us that without even a hint of irony.)

(Clearly he has the confidence to pull it off.)

Inappropriate? Completely.
Did I laugh my head off when I got this birthday card in the mail from a friend (you know who you are!)?
Why, yes.  Yes, I did.  

Another birthday dinner with two of our best friends, Rod and Kristin.
And baby Riley, of course.

As mentioned in my last post, a couple of noteworthy things happened during my birthday this year.

For starters,  I was actually surprised. 

I believe I've mentioned in the past that John and I are notorious for throwing each other "surprise" birthday parties.  As in, hey, which day is Sherri's annual surprise birthday party, John?

This year, it was more like, SURPRISE!  There's no birthday party planned for you.

But, you know.  In a good way.

John and I went to dinner with my parents and AG on the night of my birthday. He was being awfully pushy about what time we HAD TO get there, and so as we arrived I literally started looking around for friends' cars and familiar faces.

In my mind, I'm all, yeah, yeah, when is everyone gonna jump out and yell surprise.....let me mentally practice my surprise face now.

Or not.

Then, a couple of friends show up halfway through our meal, and I'm thinking......ah ha! that's smart, have everyone come LATE and surprise me.  Nice work, babe.

At which point I realize that our friends are actually there for a datenight, NOT a surprise party.

I had to tell on myself and admit all of this to John later.

(It must be a real treat to be married to me.)

Upon arriving home, John's all, "you have 30 minutes to pack a suitcase. Your parents are keeping AG tonight."

To which I reply, well that's easy, I'm still packed from Nashville.  Let's go.

And that was the first (and last) time I'll ever exceed his expectations on how long it takes me to get ready.

We head over to the Grand Hyatt in Buckhead, at which point he tells me, it's your birthday, babe! We can do whatever you want!  Which turned out to be putting on my sweats and watching a movie on TV.

(Again, it must be a real treat to be married to me.)

Before we start the movie though, he informs me that he has to leave for a work trip the next morning, but that I get to stay at the hotel all day. He has arranged for me to have an in-room massage at 10am, and then tells me that I should order WHATEVER I WANT from room service.

(It's almost like he knows that room service, massages, and watching tv in bed are my love languages.)

(Oh wait.  He does.)

This is all especially sweet and thoughtful, because a few months ago, we had the following conversation, on a day where I was just mentally and physically exhausted:

Me:  You know what would be my perfect day?

John:  What, babe?

Me:  Just going to a hotel and laying in bed all day, while ordering room service and watching tv.  Throw in a massage somewhere and I'd be good to go.

(Yes, I realize that could not possibly sound any lazier. Keepin' it real over here.)

John:  Would I be there too?

Me:  Well, um.....maybe for part of it. 

(Disclaimer:  I love my husband, and generally want to be around him at all times. I don't know why I told him I would want him there for only part of it, because when he actually created my perfect day, I got bored about 10 minutes after he left, and wanted him to come back and enjoy the laziness with me.)

(For the third time, it's obviously a real treat to be married to me.)

(I don't know why I actually put this stuff in writing for the world to see.)

(Well, let's be honest.  For all 4 of you to see.)


Anyway, the biggest surprise of the night was when he let me open my birthday present.  Where I find this:

As I try to wipe the shock off my face, he tells me that we're leaving in less than two weeks.....which, WHAT!?

And now I'm in the midst of packing a suitcase that I could literally fit my whole SELF into, while worrying about how the French are gonna feel about my "Bonjour, y'all" attempt at speaking their language.

This should be interesting.

August Craziness

Wow.  August has very nearly done me in, y'all.  (Which is southern talk for making me kind of crazytown.)  I have traveled 3 out of the last 3 weekends in a row, which means during the week I've only had time to do the following:

1. Unpack my overly large suitcase
2.  Tackle the ridiculously massive laundry pile
and finally,
3.  Repack my overly large suitcase for the next 3 day trip

So, before another month goes by, let me fill you in, mini-recap style.  (Well, it'll honestly probably be more monster-recap than mini-recap.  But I'll try.)

Weekend One:  Family Wedding in Fishkill, NY.

We flew up to NY on Thursday to celebrate John's cousin Kyle's wedding.  It was seriously so great to spend time with John's extended family....they are awesome, and we don't get to see them nearly enough.  AG was a trooper, through two days of no naps, bumpy airplane rides, and staying up til 11ish both nights.

Kyle and Lindsay, the bride and groom. 

John's cousin, Shayna and her precious little girl, Kiernan.  

Family dancing....LOVE.

Not sure WHAT is going on with our hands.
Apparently we are fans of the awkward hand-clasp, Olan-Mills style.

Unfortunately, AG's patience wore thin, conveniently as we were going through airport security on the way back to Atlanta.


You know what will intimidate a TSA officer?  A 2-year old screaming her head off because they made her "dubs" go through the x-ray machine.

You know what will entertain the other bored travelers waiting in line?

A frantic mother yelling, "No, it's okay!  Dubs is going on an adventure!!  YAY!  He loves riding through the machine!," while clapping her hands like a maniac.

Good times.


Weekend Two:  Girls Beach Weekend, Panama City Beach

This was SO fun, y'all.  I've been needing a girls weekend for, OH, about the last two years.  Our sweet husbands bravely agreed to watch kids so we could do rash and crazy things all weekend.  You know, like sleep in til 9am.  Read numerous magazines.  Watch movies on the couch.  And stay up until the late hour of 10 o'clock at night.

(We are SO wild.)

This stack of magazines weighed at least 5 lbs.
So, I guess we DID work out.

It was rainy/cloudy most of the time, but still totally worth it for girl time.

Venturing out of the condo to walk off some of the brownies.

Love these girls.

We definitely did meet some interesting characters, as per usual for PCB.  One of my favorites was this guy, who asked if we were gonna go out and "party." To which one of my friends bluntly replied, listen, we're in our 30's with kids.  

To which HE replied, "aw heck, that's no fun." 


(I then suggested an outing to La Vela, to prove that we are, in fact, still fun. But since we didn't want to portray ourselves as middle-aged cougars, we opted to remain at the condo in our spandex, junk food-eating clothes.)

(I mean, those magazines aren't just gonna read themselves, you know.)


Weekend Three:  Weekend in Nashville/Birthday

(As this post is now getting long, I will recap list-style from here.)

(Let's be honest though, even a list doesn't help with the wordiness.)

1. My sweet father in law had a dorm named after him at Belmont, so we went to the naming ceremony on Friday.

So proud of you, Papa D. : )

2.  AG managed (just. barely.) to keep it together during the ceremony, after which she participated in an inaugural pee-pee in one of the brand-new dorm rooms.

3.  She then participated in an inaugural bed-jumping in one of the new dorm rooms.  Which I think was really thoughtful of her, because those college kids NEED TO KNOW if the beds are good for jumping on.

Turns out, they are.

(Yep, I just called them college "kids."  Perfect segue into how I am now old.)

4.  Bringing me to....my birthday.  My brother-in-law Jamey and I share a birthday, and my father-in-law and HIS mother (who was also there for the weekend) share a birthday just four days after ours, so we had a big birthday dinner to celebrate.  The food was amazing and the rest of the family wouldn't let any of us lift a finger to help.

(My favorite kind of dinner).

5.  John, AG, and I came home on my actual birthday, after stuffing our faces at Monelle's for breakfast.  We then had dinner with my wonderful parents, who were awesome enough to keep AG for the night while we spent the night at a hotel here in town to celebrate.

Post Monelle's face-stuffing. Perfect time for a photo opp.

Me and my awesome parents!

I may have to do a separate birthday post. Mainly because there were some funny things that happened, and because for ONCE I managed not to ruin a surprise.  Which is blog-worthy in and of itself.

(Well, maybe not, but I'll probably still write about it anyway.)

You can thank me later.

I Don't Understand

Y'all.  There are certain things in life that I just don't understand.

Ankle boots, for instance. I mean, I want to wear them.  I think they look adorable on other people. (And by people, I clearly mean models with toothpick ankles.)  Very unfortunately, my cankles don't allow them to be super cute on me.

Another thing I don't understand?

Cankles.

(Mainly, I don't understand why they don't go away.  What's that?  A diet of m&m's and fruit snacks doesn't help?)

(That, I understand.)

Folding a fitted sheet is yet ANOTHER thing that I don't understand.  I doubt I ever will.  My preferred method is currently kind of balling/crumpling it into something that kind of resembles a square-ish mound, and then pretending I don't see it until it's time to use it again.

And finally, I don't really understand the girls at the gym in full makeup, jewelry, and only a sports bra.

When I wear makeup to the gym (as in, mascara that I was too lazy to wash off the night before), I end up sweating so profusely that it runs all over my face into an unfortunate impression of a heavy metal rockstar.  Except way less cool.

I can barely remember to wear jewelry in real life, and the one time I worked out in a sports bra, it was only after double- and triple-checking to be sure no one was around to be blinded by my pasty-white flab.  (Also, it was approximately 117 degrees outside, and hey, last time I checked, aren't most gyms air-conditioned?!)

Guess I'll be sticking with my pit-stained t-shirts, thanks.

What about you? Are there things you just don't understand?  I'd love to hear about them....unless one of them is "blogging about random things out of the blue."

(Don't understand that one either, although it seems I manage to do it on a near-constant basis.)