The Beginnings of a Birthday

If you heard yesterday's podcast, you know that Ryan sort of had a weekend-long birthday celebration! (And isn't that how every birthday SHOULD be???)

Saturday, we helped a friend move to a new house, which is pretty much Ryan's happy place. (Helping, I mean.) He organized the whole moving party, because that is also his happy place, and he chose SEVEN IN THE MORNING for a move time. So here are the movers, trying to be awake.

I'm pretty sure we all just rolled out of bed and went. And please note that I am NOT letting go of that coffee. Not for a minute.

My participation in this move lasted about an hour, but Ryan stayed with it until about 1:30 in the afternoon. (He was helping hook up appliances and all manner of things I'm not equipped to do.)

And THEN we started the actual celebration part of the birthday. We picked up our friends Mike and Angie, so we could head out for a little shopping and Ryan's birthday dinner.

Mike makes AMAZING lattes, so he had these waiting for us when we arrived:

Funny story: Mike puts people in his phone with descriptions so he can remember who they are (like if he's just met them). When he first met Ryan (who worked with Mike's now-wife) he put Ryan in his phone as "ripped Ryan." LOL!!!! Isn't that great? I'm not sure if "Be-Kaww" is what he thinks of me or if he was just being creative with my cup.

We drove down toward Indy and did a little shopping, and then we met up at Ryan's restaurant happy place: Tucano's.

This is, I think, the third year in a row we've gone to Tucano's for Ryan's birthday. He loves it because he gets a free meal for his birthday (with the purchase of another meal, so that's how I get to go! HA!).

If you heard the podcast, you know the place was kind of on the struggle bus that night. Slow service, overcooked meat, and the guys especially had a rough time. But we made it! (I had a rough time too - right after we took this picture, I started feeling really sick and it took me OVER an hour to recover enough to eat anything!)

Ryan - ready for the meats!

And here is some of our evening fun:

 My tongs were mangled.

We have this same picture of Ryan last year, so we had to recreate it. Post-dinner coma.

Group photo opp!

Angie wanted some makeup from Ulta, so this was how Ryan stayed occupied during that shopping experience:

Mike and Angie needed to get home to relieve their babysitters, so we stayed for a bit to talk and drink more coffee with them!

A fun start to the birthday weekend! I'm glad the service finally came around at the restaurant and Ryan was able to enjoy lots of way-too-red-for-my-tastes meat!