I had a wonderful 40th birthday and I felt very spoiled for several days! The celebrations started the evening before my birthday. Jeremy, Lucy and I went to hear the Tallis Scholars concert at Saint James Cathedral. We dropped Sam and my MIL off downtown too, so they could attend the Paul McCartney concert that same night. (I was torn choosing between the Tallis Scholars and Sir Paul, but I decided to go to the Tallis Scholars since I have been lucky enough to hear Paul perform three times.) Of course I ran into Joy Sherman there, which was was a delightful birthday gift because she is one of the people I love and admire most in this world. Whenever I run into choir concerts, Jeremy jokes that he plans it as part of the celebration.
Lucy was kind of wiggly during the performance, but everyone in our family had a good evening!
Here I am with my fancy in-house soda drink. I can't remember the drink, but probably pomegranate-flavored. I'm very predictable in what I order.
What I didn't know is that while I was at work, Carrie and Rachael also were busy decorating my lawn. I came home from work in the afternoon and saw that they had left a yard sign, heart-attack designs and 40 tulips on my porch! These women know how to celebrate and I felt so loved that day!
I think that evening we had Thai food for takeout. Sam had a cello lesson that evening, so our birthday meal was a quick one. But the great part of that evening was that Violet jumped through a hoop for me, not just once but multiple times. I have been trying to train her for months to jump through a hoop and she finally acquiesced on my birthday!
The rest of our celebration continued that weekend, when J and I stayed at Treehouse Point for a night while my in-laws watched the kids. We ate a fancy dinner at the Snoqualmie Lodge and even won $100 that night! It was a lovely date and the treehouse was charming.
The next morning, Jeremy dropped me off at the Rachael's house and we headed out for a Girls' Day celebration. We first went to Value Village and found some sequiny and fancy outfits to wear rollerskating. Then we took a long walk along the the waterfront toward Alki Beach, and I remember we had a long chat about sharing opinions about abortion rights and the constitution because of the Roe vs. Wade leak. I love the variety and intellect of the conversations that we have together. Then we ate lunch at Salty's and went out for pedicures at Daily Nail & Spa on 35th Ave (they did a really good job for a good price!).
Probably the biggest surprise of all was that afterward, Rachael and Carrie took me to iFly for a surprise indoor skydiving adventure! I knew that they were taking me somewhere for a surprise, and my only clue was that I needed to bring something to hold my hair back. When they told me this (the day before), I had joked with them in a text thread that the hair tie was for a skydiving activity. They laughed and diverted the conversation elsewhere, but I did get a bit suspicious when I told Jeremy later about my skydiving joke and he got a stricken look on his face and then tried to laugh at my joke. But I still was surprised when they took us to iFly. I wasn't sure if I would be nervous, but it really was fun and a very memorable way to celebrate with friends. I knew this would be an especially dear memory, knowing that Rachael would be moving away in just a few months.
We had a little bit of time to kill before the last part of our marathon Girls' Day Out - which was the one thing that I had planned and requested. So we hung out at the Southcenter Mall for a little bit, wearing our matching iFly shirts while we shopped at Sephora and ate at the food court. Then we headed to the Southgate Roller Rink for disco skating. (Although there wasn't really a lot of disco music, but that's okay.) It was so fun to be back on skates again and revive a dormant part of me that I never get to do anymore!
This video makes me laugh because we clearly are trying to be all cool with our "raise the roof" dance skills and thrift store purchases, but we're kind of fumbling around even more nerdy when I stop and say, "I think we're blurry!" Ha! I also like that I'm chewing gum in this video (because I rarely do now, but I did it a lot when I was a teenager so it fits with throwback disco skating vibe that night).
These several days were really wonderful and I'll always remember them. I feel lucky to have such a great family and such great friends. The Bruno Mars song "Skate" has been reminding me of this birthday adventure since it happened, and now that Rachael has moved away I keep thinking of how the Bruno Mars song "Count on Me" also is a good one to encapsulate our special friendship. I know that, despite the geographic distance, that the lyrics of the song still pertain to our friendship: we will always "be there" for each other and we will "never say goodbye" to each other.
Posts
