A Birthday Surprise

"Seize the day. Remember all those women on the Titanic who passed on the dessert plate." ~ Erma Bombeck (via my friend Mama Rock)

A couple of weekends ago, I pulled off a pretty clever birthday surprise for The Boy from Texas.  We had been trying to figure out a plan to see each other the weekend before his birthday, but had basically given up because we failed to plan in advance and plane tickets were too expensive.  So, alas, we decided I would stay here and clean the house and he would stay there and mow his lawn.

But you know that I'm a girl who LOVES birthdays.  I mean seriously LOVES them.  It all started when I was a little kid and Aunt Elaine introduced me to birthday cakes and my mom hired her students to come to my party dressed up as clowns and two grandmas spoiled us with lots of presents.

Childhood birthday party with my grandmas

So the thought of The Boy from Texas spending his birthday weekend mowing the lawn was not going to fly with this girl.  So on Friday at about 3:00, I sent him a text message containing only this picture.  Then I got on a plane.

By the time I got to Dallas, he texted back saying, "Does that say you arrive at 7:30 today?  TODAY?"  I wrote back and just said, "Airport.  7:30.  Don't be late."  He called me a turkey (I was going for being called "girlfriend of the year," but I'll take what I can get) and said he would be there.

And from there we spent the weekend on the lake with the family just skiing and swimming and hanging out.  Cousin Whitney and her new husband even joined us on the last day of their honeymoon.  My mom made The Boy from Texas a strawberry birthday cake (I would whine that she never makes me a homemade cake, but you guys would just tell me to shut up after reading about the clowns above) and my parents took us to dinner.  And then, well because it's my family, we took pictures of ram lambs.

The old classic 1970's model boat

The yearly father/daughter lake photo

Swimming in the cove

With the honeymooners

Gambler checking out what was going on across the fence

Completely worth the price of that plane ticket to pull off the birthday surprise.  At least I'm telling myself that.  Ask me again when I'm broke and living in a cardboard box under a bridge.