Yesterday was a busy day for my family. Most weekend days are busy days nowadays, but yesterday was one of those days where at 6:00 in the evening you could swear it was 11:00 in the evening and you are wondering why everyone is still awake.
It started out the day before. Yeah, I know that sounds silly, but Sandi had sent me an email late Friday evening asking me if I would be willing to wake up early to go garage saleing with her. How could I say no? So we woke up early on a Saturday, had a quick and light breakfast and headed out the door. We were able to hit a couple of sales before we had to head home to get ready for…
We left the house almost as soon as we got home to head over to Calaveras Skate for my neices birthday party. Well, it was actually just a roller skating time before the party unlike what I was led to believe, or perhaps misunderstood. Regardless, the skating rink portion of the day was just the beginning of what was going to be a much longer part of the day. But I digress. I left the rink a little early with three of my five kids because it was time to …
I hit the barber shop at around 12:30. I desperately needed a haircut. My hair is usually pretty short, so when it starts to grow it looks like it is starting to sprout. I began to look like those little trolls you see on the tops of pencils. You know, the pink headed Don King lookalike troll? Yeah, that was me. Just without the pink. And it needed handling in a serious way. So I hit the barber shop up before …
The real birthday party started at about 2:00. We headed over to my brothers place for the festivities and it wasn’t long until I was at the barbecue handling carne asado with chips and guacamole in one hand and a Heineken in the other. Few things make a sunny and warm day better than having a pair of tongs in one hand and a cold beer in the other while being surrounded by family.
After the cooking and the eating and the drinking and the eating, wait, did I already say eating? Nevermind that, we headed out for a little street football. I shouldn’t have done this because I was still sore from the pillow fight the other night and I had just eaten and I had just drank. But how is a guy supposed to say no to street ball? Seriously?
It didn’t last long.
Yes, I am fat and out of shape. And I was still sore. And after that fiasco, I was exhausted. So I hit the table again and made sure I would not be hungry until next year. Then my family helped clean up some of the mess before heading home.
It was a crazy busy day. It was exhausting. But it was also a blast. And I would not have traded that for the world.
Today was kind of a neat day. Though it was longer than I would have likes it we were able to spend some time with my family, my in-laws and my sister-in-law.
We all got together at my sister-in-laws apartment to celebrate my wife’s parents birthday. They have birthdays that are very close to one another and, given the nature of the economy and the fact that my mother-in-law was recently laid off, it made sense to maximize this event. So my wife and her sister decided they were going to make a dinner for their parents to celebrate their birthday.
Cioppino was the order of the day and it was some kind of good. I have never had it before and I gotta say I could get used to a few more bowls of that stuff. It is sort of like crawfish stew mixed with a seafood soup. It has a very oceany flavor and it is very filling. Plus it was hot and the day was chilly so it made the end of the day so much better.
Throw in the fact that we were surrounded by family and food and football and, well, you can rest assured that I had a fantabulous time. Oh yeah, and the Colts beat the Patriots. If nothing else happened tonight that in and of itself would have been enough to make the night better than ever.
Today is my daughter Adriannah’s birthday. She turns eight years old today. Another birthday (and thank God the last of the year for our family) is upon me and I could swear that is was January 1st just a few weeks ago.
I don’t know about you but it seems that the years are beginning to move a lot faster than they have in the past. It is already almost month 10 of the year 2008. Uh, huh? Not only is already October practically, it already 2008. Wasn’t it just last week that we were worrying about the Y2K scare?
Anyway, I will spend time later trying to figure out where the heck my life has gone over the last eight years. For now I have a little more pressing of an issue… wishing my daughter a happy Birthday.
Happy birthday to you;
Happy birthday to you;
Happy birthday dear Adriannah;
Happy birthday to you.
I should have known it would start this way, with the noise and the “I’m hungry” and the “Did not!” and the “Did too!”. Seems as though almost all day-afters are the same. The thing that made this morning a little different I think was the sheer volume of what had to be done today to make today work.
First, and probably the most difficult, thing of the day was actually waking up. After last night just the thought of getting out of bed this morning was daunting. Then the thought of a living room that was beat to hell seemed to add to the stack. Throw in the fact that we needed to leave early this morning for the festivities of the day AND that I had to feed this army of a sleepover and it is easy to see that I was not looking forward to being awake at any point today (except for the fun stuff that is).
After coming to grips with what the day had in store for us I decided it was time to handle the feeding of the flock. And what better way to do that than with some eggs. But how many should I cook for eight girls, my son, my wife and I? This is what I calculated:
2 dozen eggs ought to do it
Yep, you counted right. 24 eggs. Two dozen of them. That is a lot of eggs (don’t be fooled though, we go through 14 just in my family alone). Alas, I even needed to haul out the big bowl to harness all of them things.
2 dozen eggs in a bowl... the big bowl
So I scrambled up those eggs after beating them something fierce and was able to serve up the eggs and toast in just enough time to get us out of the house almost an hour late. Fortunately for us the hour late was made better by the fact that the people that were going to be there when we eventually end up there were also late making the beginning to our festivities better.
Where is there? There is here, the Malibu Grand Prix and Castle. Bekah wanted to drive go carts for her birthday so we hit up the go carts, bumper boats and mini golf for the day. The reason we wanted to be there early was because a group of 25 was scheduled for a party immediately after ours. Like I said though, they were late too so we actually had the track almost entirely to ourselves for the duration of the driving. I was blessed to be able to take my daughter Adriannah on two laps and a friend of my daughter Rebekah’s on two laps (which means I got four laps baby, yeah!).
After the driving was the bumper boating which was a blast. Sandi took Alaynah on the bumper boats and had great big water battles with all of the other kids. She was soaked, they were soaked, it was a big old soakfest. Which was good because the sun was starting to peak and it was getting hot. Not to mention that fact that were about to embark on hitting the greens with eleven of us, count it, eleven of us playing.
Golf did not go as well as the rest of the day did. It was nice that we made it through about five holes, after which kids started dropping off like flies. By the sixteenth we had five playing and Alaynah wasn’t even hitting her ball anymore, she was walking it up to the hole and dropping it in. It was hot, there was no shade and we had killed all of our water by the fourth hole. Crap.
The nice thing though was that we hit the arcade soon after that. The arcade is air conditioned and for the most part devoid of life as we know it. We were the only people on the place for a while until a few other people decided to crash the joint. By then though we were out of tokens and just basically playing on the various sit down games. Not playing the games, playing on them.
We managed to leave the place after only about four hours which was truly just about all I could stand of it. It was hot, I was tired and the kids were cranky from not sleeping enough last night. At the end of the day (the play day that is) we all needed a little R&R. Which is what we are having. Right now.
Tonight marks the night my daughter Rebekah will be celebrating her 11th birthday. It is a little late, but scheduling circumstances outside of my control necessitated this weekend be the weekend we do this.
What that means to be is that tonight I will be flooded with young girls eating, playing, screaming, eating, screaming and screaming. I already know that it is going to be loud. And that I am going to get eaten out of house and home. And that I am going to get very little sleep. I am prepared for that. I think what I am not prepared for, and what I truly do not know how to prepare for, is the physical impact this will have on me and my wife.
Of course, knowing me, I am going to throw myself headlong into the festivities. I always do. And I will probably end up setting up games or something fun for the kids and see to it that they stay up too late. That just seems to me to be something that I am drawn to. So I am rather looking forward to having some fun tonight.
I guess I am just not looking forward to the noise, the food bill, the noise and the noise. But with a house full of girls, should I really expect anything less?
Due to extraordinary scheduling issues in our family (immediate and extended) our July birthday party marathon had to be massaged a little into fitting a totally different series of weekends. Given that the Hubers, long time friends of ours, had come back to the area for about a day we managed to wrangle our weekend so that we were able to see them yesterday. That left today to have a birthday party for my daughter Alaynah.
To make sure we had all of the stuff we needed for the party I made a run to Costco this (late) morning to get a a few things (plates, waters, pizzas, etc). Little did I know that Costco would be having a massive sale on Pizzas today which left the better part of the East Bay wanting to head to the Fremont Costco. And buy pizza.
The line was atrocious to say the least. It stretched well beyond the eating area as it began to wind past the tire center. I thought that for sure I would be in line for a half hour. But the party needed food and I had Alaynah and a cake with me so I had to tough it out. And I did.
About 20 minutes into the mess of waiting, getting walked on, pushed, almost spilled on and breathed on heavily by all sorts of freaks and weirdos I would not want ever be in close quarters with, I found out there were two lines for picking up food. One was for pizzas, since that is what all of northern California was there for, and the other was for food that wasn’t a whole pizza. When I found this out I thought the right thing to do would be to at least inform those around me that this was the case, so I did.
It ended up being that half the line was not there for a whole pizza. In fact many of them were waiting, grumpily as I was, to get their churros or slices or sodas. And as the lines split rapidly I found myself standing next to a whole new collection of people. One of those people was a young woman that keep peaking over at Alaynah and I was we patiently waited our turn to get our pizzas. She didn’t talk to us, but she did show some interest in our interaction. I thought nothing of it as I eventually got our pizzas, loaded them onto our cart and headed for the door.
As we walked out of the Costco however I found myself still next to this young woman and her family. And as we began our right turn toward our parking space the woman looked over at Alaynah and said “I hope you have a great birthday party Alaynah.”. You would have thought that time stood still and the heavens opened up for her.
Alaynah beamed with excitement. “How did she know my name? And how did she know it was my birthday party today?” she asked. Apparently all the time we spent in line she had heard Alaynah and I talking about the party. And so she stepped out and wished her a great party. And it made Alaynah’s afternoon.
So to that young woman at the Costco this afternoon, thank you. That was a very fine gesture you made. You were a perfect example of what charity is. And you made my daughter’s birthday party day a bit brighter as well.
Today is a birthday. I really cool one.
It belongs to my daughter Rebekah. But it also belongs to my daughter Alaynah. Yes, they were both born on the same day. Six years apart, but on the same day. And almost at the same time, being born 12 minutes apart.
I remember the days pretty clearly. Mostly because the entire last four days or so was almost identical. The day of their births (which oddly enough fell on exactly the same day of the week) I woke up and got to work at about 7:29 (I started work at 7:30 in those days). Sandi was awake when I left the house and I asked her if she needed me to stay home because she had been having contractions all night.
She said that she would call me if she needed me to come home. So I left for work, got in, checked my email and voicemail and as soon as I was done with that, about 8:15 or so, I got a call that I needed to come home because we needed to get to the hospital.
Anyone who knows me and my wife knows that her deliveries have all gone very fast so there was really no time to waste. I got home, we took the kids to wherever they were staying so we could get to the hospital and we took off, getting to the hospital a little after 9:00.
A little after noon our kids were born.
They even looked alike when they were born, both having extremely thick dark hair. Facial features looked remarkably similar as well. It was uncanny. And it is still fresh in my head.
So to you my beautiful daughters I tell you Happy Birthday. Thank you both for the memories and for the joy you have brought to my life just by your existence. I am so blessed that God chose me to be your daddy. I love you immensely and I am glad you are my daughters.
A letter, of sorts, to my son:
So this morning, at 7:42 AM, you turned three. That is huge. It is like an entire 1 more than 2. You are all growed up, at least as far as a three year old can be, and are all kinds of big boy now. Yet is still feels like just a few days ago that you were born.
Today was a weird but special day for you. Through an odd scheduling snafu mom scheduled a day out with Yolanda today. That meant that you, me and all the girls would be home today while mom was out wine tasting. Except, at the very last minute this morning your momma decided that she was not healthy enough to drive herself to Millbrae so she asked me to take her. Which meant all of us were going for an early morning drive this morning.
Momma threw you all in the truck (figuratively of course) and we headed to Millbrae. We dropped mom off and Greg invited us over to his house for breakfast (actually, he invited us out to breakfast but since you and your sisters were hastily rushed out of the house this morning all of you were in your jammies and none of you had shoes). Breakfast was awesome and you and Preston had a great time playing around the large open living room at their house. We stayed there for a good while and finally got home around 1:15.
About 15 minutes later auntie Katie showed up to wish you a happy birthday and she ended up treating us to lunch. We came home, ate, talked, ate some more, played and ate some more. Then Auntie Katie had to go because we had to go get some stuff for your cake tonight. Since mom was not here all day she wanted to be able to do cake with you tonight. But we needed a cake and some toppers to go on it. Which is why we went out to get that stuff.
We got home right around 4:30 or so. I put a movie on for you guys while I got the coals ready for steaks. I got dishes washed and everything ready to cook and got to it. While I was cooking you and Alaynah were playing out in the yard. Playtime seemed to go on forever for you two, but it actually ended at about 6:00 when we had dinner. A little while later mom got home.
Just after that we had your rainbow cake with Diego toppers and “A” and “J” candles. It was awesome. We got you wired on all sorts of buttercream frosting then turned you lose on the front room to open your presents. You got a pretty big kick out of most of them, playing with the little spirally Go Diego Go car slide. In fact, you played with that up until it was bedtime.
Which is why I am writing this so late. You see, in the hubbub of what was your birthday I had no time at all to even tell you happy birthday here. So I am taking this time, after you are asleep and after I have taken a shower (because Lord knows I needed one). I just want to tell you again son… Happy birthday. I love you and I am glad that God chose to bless me with your existence in our family.
You are an amazing kid. You learn incredibly fast, you are very smary naturally and you are all boy. I love watching your maleness come screaming out of you as you develop into a little boy. You are already well on you way to that and I am certainly glad that I get to be a part of that with you. So today son, as you sleep off the effects of a very busy Sunday, I just want to let you know again how much I love you and how glad I am that you had a happy birthday.