I Suck At Celebrating My Birthday

Yesterday, was my birthday. Too bad I suck at celebrating my birthday. If you were to use the same earth revolutions as my friend (Andrea), I turned 27 yesterday. For anyone curious, Andrea's earthly revolutions run a little slower than the normal calendar. And by slower, I mean it stops after a certain age. So 27 it is.

Anyway to celebrate my birthday, Karen and I took our kids to the Abington Ale House. It has almost become an annual tradition that I eat at the Abington Ale House on my birhtday... because I usually don't go there otherwise. It's not that the food is bad. Quite the contrary. I enjoy the food there. I just don't venture down to Abington, or think about venturing down to Abington, all that often. The only time I really think about going to the Abington Ale House is on my birthday.

Needless to say, the food there was delicious. I had the sirloin which was very good. And naturally, the meal was free... because it was my birthday. And free is good.

One of the more interesting things that happened during my birthday meal at the Abington Ale House, aside from discovering that my driver's license expired... and Karen's for that matter... (hers expired back in October) was that sitting at the table directly across from us were two women with a toddler. The fact that they were women was not the interesting part. The interesting part was that the toddler's name was Braden, the same name as my son who passed away.

It was just one of those interesting coincidences because I don't consider Braden that common of a name. And to be seated directly across from a Braden was nice, especially on my birthday. And as odd as this sounds, it really felt like my son was really looking down at me and did what he could to celebrate my birthday with me.

Following the Abington Ale House, I spent some time watching the kids while Karen went to the Registry of Motor Vehicles to renew her license. Both of us attempted to renew our license online, but unfortunately we did not qualify for online renewal. So off she went to renew hers.

Anyway, before I knew it, the day was almost over. I still had one last thing that I wanted to do with my family on my birthday before it got too late. And that was... the Millis Wonderland.

Karen had heard about the Millis Wonderland from work. I'm not normally interested in things like the Millis Wonderland. My two year old daughter (Briana), however, seems to be all into lighted decorations. There is a tree in our neighborhood that has lights on it and she has to see it every night. In fact, I have to drive by the tree at night whenever she is in the car.

So naturally, I wanted to surprise Briana with a trip to the Millis Wonderland before it got too late. The good news... getting to and from Millis was not bad. It was definitely an interesting ride. I got to drive through so many towns: Medway, Medfield, Dover, Walpole, I'm sure there are more that I forgot. Heck, I even got to see some department store named Lords in Medway. The store looks so antiquated from the outside that it seems almost amazing that it is still around.

Anyway, the bad news: the wait to see the Millis Wonderland. It took almost as long to get from my house to Millis than it did to wait to get into the wonderland. And interestingly enough, the Millis Wonderland is just someone's house. It's weird that people would wait so long in line to drive through this person's house (the person happens to own a car dealership). Don't get me wrong, the lights were nice and some of the displays were nice... but worth the long wait? In my opinion, probably not. But Briana seemed to enjoy it.

When we were going to Millis, we told Briana that we were going on a mystery ride. Her reaction was funny when she saw the lights at the Millis Wonderland. Briana had exclaimed "We solved the mystery, Mommy!" I don't even know where she got that from. Needless to say, Briana wants to do "mystery" rides weekly now. Great...

All in all, it was a fun birthday celebration. I had a great time with my family.