Birthday Boy!!

As you know, Ryan's birthday was Wednesday...and we had the most lovely day! {Well. Minus my somewhat ugly cry meltdown as we were leaving for work, but THAT'S a long story we won't go into today. Just know that Ryan is a saint for loving me through that mess.}

I am a firm believer that birthdays are personal holidays and should be celebrated to the max. This is new for Ryan, who said the words, "It's just another day," to which I gasped in horror.

I was DETERMINED to make it more than "just another day," so despite my lack of cooking...and lack of a theme...we did have fun!

Ryan loves Rise n Roll donuts, which are made up by Middlebury. I arranged to have Lynne pick up a half dozen at Nolts Marketplace in Fort Wayne, who receives a shipment of them every day. I hid them in the fridge with a note that they were NOT to be snooped in...but it didn't matter. He never opened the fridge the night before! So I got up at 5:00 the morning of his birthday, warmed up the rolls, put candles (3 and 4 for 34...) in the donuts and made coffee! Delivered all that, and gift number one, to him - in bed.

That's a big deal because he's the one who always brings ME breakfast and coffee in bed! {True story! Every day!} I got some fabulous pictures of him blowing out the candles, with Braeya's help, and opening his present but I promised not to post them on the blog, because he still had his sleepy face on. So I'm being a good wife {who has a birthday coming up herself and doesn't want to jeopardize the celebration} and I'm not posting them. :)

His present for the morning was a new bottle of his cologne, which I ADORE.

I tried to make the work day fun by packing a mini-party into his lunch box: a little balloon, a picture, a note, and a clue about the evening celebration!

Here we are ready to go out for the birthday party!

I wore my dancing dress because he loves it so much. Lesson learned: do not pump gas on a freezing cold, windy day, in a dancing dress. Sorry, Fort Wayne.

Clue number one for the birthday evening was that it would be spicy.

And you know why???

He LOVES his B-dubs, so that's where we went for dinner! We were like a couple of old people in there wondering where the breeze was coming from!  LOL!! Here he is with the invisible band I hired to spice up the evening:

{This may be one of my most favorite pictures of him. SO handsome.}

After dinner, we headed out to fulfill clue number two: steamy.

We had each registered one of our Starbucks gift cards so we could get free drinks on our birthday. Our barista was so sweet and wished him a happy birthday - and then...the card did not show as registered. She was as darling as she could be about it but the manager called upon to assist just shrugged us off and said we'd have to call about it. Even after Ryan showed her the email on his phone that proved the card was registered, she was not helpful. So, $5.08 later, we got his "free" drink plus mine {which he had to order because I was so upset about that manager that I couldn't even recall what I drink at Starbucks...and you KNOW that's serious!} and we were on our merry way.

And by merry, I mean he was as you see above and I was on hold with Starbucks.

You can do a lot of things to me and I might not like it, but I'm unlikely to say anything. But by George, if you mess with coffee - mine, my husband's or anyone else's - you've just crossed the line.

We rented the movie Parental Guidance and came home to watch that while we drank the aforementioned non-free coffees and ate the birthday treat I made him. Oh MAN was this good.

The movie was oh so funny - and after it was over, he opened his last gift of the day, which unfortunately he already knew he was receiving:

But he was SO excited about it and I loved watching him rearrange everything to get it all set up the way he wanted it.

He said it was a great birthday, and I know I had a lot of fun celebrating his life. Love you so much, Ryan! Here's to a great three weeks of being the same age!! :)