Saturday, March 19, 2011

Daddy turns 39

Yesterday was Steve's birthday, and the girls were so very excited to celebrate with him.  Although they occasionally still hope for presents on someone else's birthday, mostly they now know that they are celebrating a particular person, and when it was going to be their dad they just couldn't stop talking about it.  They told everyone they met that day that it was their dad's birthday.

Christina took the girls to the party store, and they picked out some things for our celebration.  Top on their list was hats, which they made Dad wear as soon as he woke up!
Along with several twirly decorations we hung inside, the girls were convinced that Steve would like a pinata (and he actually had experienced some interest many years ago, before they were even born, so that was pretty intuitive of them!).  They picked this sun, which we definitely needed on a grey day.  Schedule-wise it was tough to figure out when to crack this guy open, and we ended up opting for 9am.



Success!  Confetti fills the air - along with several toys, noisemakers, and odds and ends the girls had asked to put in there.

After work, we all headed down to our favorite local spot, a brewery called the Kettlehouse.  They have a deck in the back that opens up to the railroad and the mountains, and it's a great place to have a drink or two.  Several friends joined us there for one of the first warmish afternoons we've had.

Some of the lovely girls of our group of friends - Elena, Annie, Clara, and Sylvie.

Then it was on to dinner.  Christina had made reservations at a restaurant in town, and unfortunately they got the number wrong - we needed 17 seats and had only twelve.  Our disappointment lasted only a few minutes, until the owner came over and escorted us downstairs to the private dining room - which had these great long wood tables with hefty benches, leather couches, a tv, etc.  It could seat up to 40, but the owner made one set of tables a "craft table" for the kids by spreading paper all over it and giving them bunches of crayons.  They had a little dance party in the couch area, and we all were so happy to have a place where we could be loud and run around and not bother anyone - it definitely turned out for the best!

Christina, Clara, and Elena had been busy that morning making Steve his favorite cake - a Guinness Chocolate Stout cake with cream cheese froth at the top - it's made to look like a pint of Guinness.  Clara and Elena had picked out candles, and each put half of them on the cake.  Christina took the lighting job on.

Champagne flowed, cake was eaten, shoes and socks were cast aside by some of our smaller party go-ers, and lots of dancing, playing, and  laughing commenced.  It was a great way to celebrate our favorite guy.  As we were leaving, we caught sight of the super full moon (one day early) and marveled at what a wonderful world it is.

Of course, a few hours later, the universe just wanted to show us life  isn't all roses and moonlight and we got to experience a great deal of vomit (Clara), tantrums and hysteria (Elena) and frayed nerves (Christina and Steve).  But, happily, there are no pictures of that.

No comments: