My 34th Birthday
Here we are, halfway through the next month and I still haven’t recapped/talked about my birthday.
I should tell you I hate birthdays. Not because I don’t like getting older. No, I’m fine with that. That means I’m still alive. I just hate the day. In more recent years I haven’t had good birthdays. It’s been forgotten by family and friends (not all, please don’t take offense if you remembered!!!). It gets treated like another day. It’s just not a big deal. And I guess I feel like it should be a big deal? I don’t know. Maybe I’m full of myself… ha.
When hubby and I got together, it seems like he gets week long birthday’s and I barely get a day. I guess I was a bit jealous of that. The reason he gets that is that if his birthday falls during the week, we’re supposed to get Tbug to celebrate, but that doesn’t always happen. So we celebrate on his birthday. I’ve thrown him surprise birthdays. Plus we’ve celebrated his real birthday on a weekend we had Tbug. Multiple times all of this has happened.
This year, my hubby decided to give me a week long birthday. This morning I saw a quote on Facebook:
I know good men still exist because I am lucky enough to have one.
A friend from college commented that she couldn’t help but think back to our Memoirs class and how much she learned about him. Maybe this is something I should have written about in class… Although I’m not far enough removed from it to use for a memoir.
Anyway, let’s quit procrastinating and let’s discuss
my birthday.
My birthday started out the weekend before my birthday, if you ask hubby. I had been wanting to eat at the Japanese Steakhouse for a while. He decided we were eating there and that was the start of my birthday.
When we were at AC & UB’s earlier in the month, I fell in love with AC’s flour/sugar/etc canisters. She and UB bought me a starter set for my birthday. LOVE them. In fact, I sent her a picture of filling the first one and said we should have some kind of a ceremony. Mom bought me a couple additional pieces and hubby got me some 1/4 cup measuring cups to leave in the flour, sugar, powdered sugar, and brown sugar. I always love having a measuring cup in those things, then I’m ready to go at the dorp of a hat. Btw, these things are AWESOME!
On Wednesday, I had taken my Piña Colada cupcakes to the dive shop with me. When I got there, a delivery came for me. It was a flower cake. Hubby thought it was a real cake decorated with flowers, but it wasn’t. It was a flower cake, just as it looks/states. So pretty and smelled amazing. I broke down in tears.
My friend Jody brought me this. Love it!
Then on Thursday Abug and I went to school. After school, when we came home, and I went to baking a cake. I had a cake to deliver on Friday. Now if you read that post, you’ll know things didn’t go quite as planned. (if you didn’t read it, read it now!) Because of that cake, we wound up down at my grandma’s house. When we got back, I was greeted by these beauties.
Friday morning I was up at the crack of dawn to be at Tbug’s house to pick her up at 7am. Then I came home, finished the cake, and we were off. I really didn’t know we were going anywhere until people kept dropping hints. Finally hubby told me I was to pack. He had a weekend planned for us in Branson.
Red Barn Cafe and Hen House Bakery
On our drive to Branson, we stopped in Mount Vernon for lunch at the Red Barn Cafe and Hen House Bakery.
I went with the Chicken Nachos. Tortilla chips, chicken, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, and salsa. These, excellent. The chips are those thin and crispy chips that are so good. The cheese on top with the chicken and the tomatoes was a great combination. Yes, I’d definitely get this again!
Then we headed on to Branson. There is road construction on Hwy 65, so we went back roads all the way there. It was a crazy fun drive. Once we got to Branson, we checked in to our hotel, then we took off for Silver Dollar City. We have season passes and this is the first time we’ve used them this year… partially because we misplaced them. When we got to SDC, we went to guest services and they hooked us up with new passes. Well…. the next week hubby found them at work in his work desk drawer. A strange place but whatever. Now we have our free guest passes back.
Abug has never been to SDC. We took her down to kiddy land and made sure she got to ride some rides. She LOVED the Tea Cups and the elephants. Later in the evening we rode Fire in the Hole, she hated it. And we rode the Lost river. She hated that as well.
We rode the big swinging boat… no clue what it’s called. Prior to it starting we were sitting all together, but another lady and little girl almost didn’t get to ride, so I gave up my seat to the 2 of them and I moved to the other side. You can only have 5 people per row and there were 6 on her particular row. We swapped the 2 for 1 and both rows had 5 and we all got to ride. It was great because I got to watch Abug’s face that way.
Then she and I rode the little roller coaster. I think Papa might have a new roller coaster riding buddy. It broke down just as we got done. Luckily we got to ride it before it broke down and it didn’t break down while we were riding it.
We decided to eat at SDC. This was the pizza place. People RAVE about this pizza. Meh. I wasn’t impressed at all. Sorry.
This was Midnight Madness so the park was open until midnight Saturday night and 10pm on Friday night. They had fireworks shows both nights. We watched one set of fireworks from the truck as we were exiting the park Friday night.
Saturday morning we woke up, ate breakfast at the hotel, and decided to go to the outlet malls. Our main goal was to hit the kitchen stores. What can I say, I’m a sucker for kitchen stores. The best one was the Kitchen Supply store over in Branson Meadows. We accidentally wound up there and I’m so glad we did!
Tequila’s 2 Mexican Restaurant
After we left the shopping mall at Branson Meadows, it was lunch time. We decided to back track a little bit to Tequila’s 2 Mexican Restaurant for lunch.
Ah, the red truck. I love this red truck!! No, I love red trucks.
Tbug got enchiladas.
Hubby went with seafood chimichangas.
I went with the steak Fries. Steak, fries, and cheese.
Abug went with her cheese enchilada, but instead of ala cart, she got rice. This is big.
After lunch, we went back to the hotel and swam in the pool. Then we went in and took naps. We were all tired. Hubby set an alarm for around 4:30 to wake up. Then we went just down the road from the hotel to Florentina’s Ristorante Italiano.
Florentina’s Ristorante Italiano
This is an Italian restaurant hubby and I found on a whim a few years ago. It is one of the best Italian restaurants around. I swear. And it’s not a chain from what I’ve learned. They start you with this wonderful Italian bread that you dip in a mix of herbs, balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil. I love dipping bread in those combinations. Seriously.
When the waiter came, hubby asked what the best thing was on the menu in the waiter’s opinion. He loves doing this. The waiter chose Penne alla Vodka. I had already ordered, but decided to take the waiter’s choice. I’m so glad I did. Grilled chicken, carmelized onions, and capers with vodka and tomato cream sauce over Penne pasta with Parmesan. The sauce was so deliciously creamy. Then add the grilled chicken with the carmelized onions and capers, I was totally sold.
Hubby went with his original choice of Seafood Ravioli. Tender ravioli filled with generous amounts of lobster, shrimp, and scallops tossed in a sun-dried tomato and cream sauce. Tossed with lightly seasoned sauteéd shrimp and Parmesan cheese.
Hubby asked if they made a huge deal about birthdays. Luckily they don’t, but they did bring me spumoni ice cream. Have you ever had this? This is an Italian ice cream made of different flavors and textures. I had had it before, but oh. my. gosh. this was totally worth it.
We went to Silver Dollar City after dinner. That was quite an interesting story all in itself. We rode some of the kiddy rides, the ones Abug requested. Then we decided to do the lazer ride. I can’t remember what it’s called. Finally, we thought we’d ride the train. Ugh! The train.
We waited at least 20 minutes outside the train station in a line waiting for our chance to either get on the train or at least get in the station for the next train. We missed the train by 4 people. So they said the next train would be around in 20 minutes. Ha! While we sat and waited on the train, that gave us time to get popcorn, a drink, and people watch.
The train showed up, they emptied it, and started loading the handicapped people. 30 minutes after we got into the station, the train still wasn’t going and we still hadn’t loaded. Everyone was getting antsy. We found out that we had to wait for the fireworks show to be over before they’d allow us to board the train. Seriously? We couldn’t watch it because we were under the roof. A few people hung out the side to watch it. That’s when a lady threw her drink into the bushes and stirred up bees. Multiple people got stung. There was mass chaos. And they made us all exit the building and they shut the train down.
So we stood in line for an hour +, missed the fireworks show, and didn’t get to ride the train. Fun…. At that point, we were all tired and annoyed so we just decided to head on back to our hotel room. A lot of other people who were in the train depot with us felt the same way.
Sunday morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and then headed home. We had plans to eat lunch with my parents and grandma to celebrate my birthday and my grandma’s birthday. I was born on my Grandma’s 51st birthday.
Outback Steakhouse
Have you ever done Outback’s click through seating? It’s awesome!
I decided since it was my birthday, I wanted the French Onion Soup. Outback has some of the best French onion soup around. I think part of that is the cheese topping, but the soup itself is excellent. It’s so good in fact, my 3 year old eats it. That and steak, medium rare. People laugh at both of these… hey, I taught her well.
They had a special of Alice Springs Chicken and Coconut shirmp. I went with a side of broccoli. I love their broccoli. Sad but true. The coconut shrimp was excellent. And for me, a person who doesn’t eat fishy things to say that, you know it had to be good. The Alice Springs Chicken is chicken breast topped with bacon and cheese. This used to be my fave. It was good, but I really wished I would have gotten a steak. Is that sad?
At Outback, you get a dessert for your birthday. I knew I had cake sitting at home so I was going to decline. They told me to get it to go. So I went with the Chocolate Thunder from Down Under. Hey, it was my birthday.
The cake. I love Ice Cream Cakes. I guess it’s because I was born in July. July is a hot month….? But also, July is National Ice Cream Month. What better thing to ask for for your birthday then, right?
Hubby’s grill has been messed up. He finally found repair kit to fix it. So that afternoon, he and the girls plus my dad some, spent the afternoon fixing the grill. He didn’t think it would take nearly as long as it did. Plus, he had plans of grilling something for dinner. Here is where I became a dumb girl on my birthday.
Truth…. It felt like normal… my birthday didn’t mean anything to anyone. Why? Well, I didn’t have any presents to open. No, I’m not a materialistic girl, but I guess I became one. Hubby spent so much time working on the memories that what “gifts” I got were bought while we were in Branson so I felt like he didn’t think of that. My presents from my parents I picked out and they weren’t even wrapped. I just lost it and started crying.
It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to… lol. My husband is a saint. He went so far out of his way to make my birthday special and I still felt like no one cared it was my birthday. I guess I’m a jerk. That’s how I felt and that’s how I still feel. My grandma didn’t even hardly acknowledge it was my birthday. That’s how it is pretty much every year. I even cried at lunch because I wished my grandma a happy birthday and she didn’t even wish me one back.
This is just another day. I need to lower my expectations on my birthday. I’m sorry! I am so grateful but at that minute I became a jerk. And I hate to put that out there, but I’m being real.
That night hubby made grilled chicken wrapped in bacon on the grill. We also had Corn sauteéd with bell peppers and garlic toast. Happy Birthday. It was excellent!
And of course we finished it off with a Chocolate Thunder from Down Under!
A few days later I read how you should use events like this to make memories as opposed to getting material possesions. Well of course I felt even more like a jerk, but I can sure tell you my husband was awesome. He went way out of my way to make my birthday special and he accomplished that. I guess I feel guilty because I came off as a jerk when I didn’t mean to. Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes. Here’s to 34. Let’s hope it’s great….