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.

I Suck At Celebrating My Birthday

Today I am another year older. As far as memorable birthdays go, I would definitely have to say this year's birthday celebration was quite low key. I guess you could say that I suck at celebrating my birthday. After all, today, more than any of my other birthdays in the past, seemed like just an ordinary day in my life.

The day began as usual with my doing chores around the house and my preparing food for my twenty month old daughter (Briana) before she actually woke up. When Briana woke up, that's when time exponentially transpired. A few diaper changes later (and watching her make a mess of breakfast), the next thing I knew it was almost noon.

By that time, my mom stopped for a visit. She wanted to celebrate my birthday by taking me out for lunch, which was great. We ended up going to the Abington Ale House. In what seems like a birthday tradition, I ordered the sirloin steak. Delicious! Being married to a dietitian, I don't get to eat steak all that often. So any time I can devour steak (and not choke on it) is good.

The Abington Ale House excursion was definitely the highlight of the day. Because afterwards, I really did not do much other than take care of Briana. It was nice seeing my mom. My dad, whose birthday also happens to be today, could not make the Abington Ale House luncheon. It would have been nice to see him today too, but I did the next best thing: I wished him happy birthday over the phone.

Incidentally, today also happens to be Hot Amy's father's birthday and a former co-worker's (Kristen) birthday too. So happy birthday to all of them too! Oh, and happy birthday Alyssa Milano! I can't forget her. I can never forget her. She's the only reason I watched Who's the Boss. (I realize that statement taken out of context could make me seem creepy, but in case anyone is curious... I am younger than Alyssa Milano. And at the time of Who's the Boss... I was a kid... she was a kid... it made sense in my distorted mind.)

Anyway, essentially that was my birthday celebration. Karen has been sick of late, so we didn't really do anything when she got home from work. Although, I suppose you can say we watched episodes of Community together. Well, I re-watched the episodes that I saw with my friends (Marc, Kelley, and Andrea) last week. In an attempt to get Karen caught up, I hooked up the computer to our television and just watched a bunch of episodes with her. Great show!

But that was pretty much it. I think one of the reasons why today seemed like more of an ordinary day to me in comparison to past birthdays is because there was no birthday cake. Granted, the Abington Ale House gave me a little cupcake... but it's not the same. I was actually tempted to buy myself an ice cream cake, but sadly ran out of time. Plus, that would have just seemed odd: buying myself a cake to celebrate my own birthday.