Birthday Happenings

Well, on Friday night my husband told me he had to go look at a job for a friend at 8:00 at night. I bothered him for quite sometime about why he was going to look at a side job when he hated doing side jobs so much. You would have to know the whole story about how he's been refusing to do side jobs for the last 2 years. Anyway...I bugged him and bugged him and he finally told me he was going to look at it and if it was a good enough job, he'd refer it to his boss. Then I was even more upset that he was going to spend his friday evening looking at a job that he wasn't even going to get paid for. Oh well...I let it go and regardless of what I said, he walked out the door saying..."gotta go, I'm late, I told them I'd be there at 8:00". Away he went and I got on the phone with my friend Jessica and talked for a while and 2 hours later he finally showed up at home and had apparently found my mother at a "job in Clackamas". I was so excited. My mother decided to surprise me for my birthday. (I should also mention that my sister Lindsay drove up from bend for Easter weekend and hung out with us too. We had a lot of fun staying up way too late.) I called her on Friday morning to rub it in her face, that my adoptive mother Sharon Bangerter was taking me to lunch for my birthday. My mother was really having to bite her tongue when I called to do such a thing when she couldn't tell me her little secret. We grocery shopped, played the Easter Bunny, made fabulous Easter Dinner, sluffed church (because we stayed up way too late), went to the beach (she got me pulled over by the fuzz on the way there too), played fast scrabble, and it seems like my mother did a whole lot of dishes while she was here. We loved her visit. I love when she comes because my mother and my husband get a long so great. My mother thinks the world of him and it's fun to watch them play jokes on each other and laugh and joke around...she's so good to him. So the funniest thing was after my mom left we played bingo which I got for my birthday. Reddens board was so full but he just couldn't get a bingo. He said really loud grabbing at his hair at the same time, "I'm going to blow a blood muscle"! It was so dang funny. Rich and I laughed and laughed. For my 29th birthday, I got a new digital camera that will do video, a clean yard that had freshly been rid of 26 bags of soda cans & the $50 result (thank you mother), a rolling bingo cage, 2 beautiful bracelets from Rich's dad and wife and gift cards to Fred Meyer, Coldstone and Claim Jumpers. All in all it was great. I got phone calls or emails from my Dad, my Brother Brian, my sister in law Mallory, My sister Jenni, My sister Lindsay, My little sister Natalie, Rich's sister Pam, Rich's Mom & step dad and rich's sister Bobbi. It was terrific. Also, I received the best birthday card yet. It's one of those little origami things that you write numbers on. You picked certain numbers and they all said different things from my husband and my children. "you are pretty and a great mom" (redden) "you are very nice to everyone" (Austin) "You are my best friend and I love you" (Rich) "You are a very good lunch maker, thank you" (Redden) "You play with us and you are very fun" (Austin) "I love your sense of humor and how we laugh" (Rich) "you are the best mom in the wolrd" (Redden) "I am very priveledged and lucky to have you as a wife" (Rich). That was the best present of all. You know, the best part about my birthdays...is that they never make me feel old because Rich has already been through the worst part before me...6 years earlier. I love him for that.