Maria's 30th Birthday

Lots of things have happened since the last time we made a blog post. But there is something I want to get posted right away - and that was the events of my 30th birthday. Andrew went to a lot of work to make this all happen. I can't imagine what he must have been running around doing! But let us start at the beginning.

This year I turned 30. My birthday was set to fall on the weekend of a conference I was helping organize for my self-help group, Recovery International. I was bummed that I would be "working" on the day I turned 30, so Drew offered me a wonderful birthday present to compensate. He had the week of my birthday off of work (we had originally thought we might travel for my birthday, and Drew took the time off much earlier in the year), and offered for me to have that week "off" from my mom duties and have all of the days free to do whatever I wanted. It was great! I was thinking it was such a wonderful gift and felt really lucky. I went out and had my nails done, I spent some time doing watercolor painting, took naps, read books, even went cosmetics shopping. I was a happy camper. Little did I know that there was even more to come!

The first day of the conference arrived (Friday, 10/9, my birthday), and I was unavailable most of the day. We went out with the kids for breakfast in the morning, but for the most part I was busy with the conference. We finished the conference at 9:30pm. I stayed and cleaned up, then got home around 10pm. I opened up the door, and all of a sudden, "Surprise!" Andrew had gathered around 15 of our friends/family for a late party at our house. I felt so special that this group was willing to come over so late to spend my birthday with me. We hung out until around 1am, then everyone had to take off, and I had to get to bed for Day 2 of the conference the next morning.

The next day at the conference was really stressful. We were locked out of our building for almost and hour at the beginning of the day because of a scheduling mistake, and by the end of the day, I was really frazzled. We finished up on time, tho. I stayed to clean up and left at 5pm. I was in a rush to get home, because we were going to dinner with Laura and Jake and their daughters that evening. But when I got home, I was so stressed out from the conference, I didn't feel like eating out. I asked Andrew if we could just order some pizza in. Drew said he had been promising the kids burritos and nachos all day. So then I asked if he could just drive through Adalberto's down the street and bring it home to eat. He told me that we should try to go out cuz that always makes me feel better and I could have a margarita. I wasn't immediately convinced. Then he suggested we order a pitcher of magaritas, and I decided that sounded good. I put on my flip-flops and was ready to go. Drew said, "are you sure you don't want to wear some different shoes?" And my response was, "no." Then he said, "are you sure you don't want to put on some makeup? That always makes you feel better." And I said, "do I really look that bad? No." So off we went.

We got to one of our favorite restaurants, Celia's. We parked in the front. There were a lot of cars in the lot, but I didn't pay much attention to that. We walked in the front door, and Drew pointed out that it was decorated for Halloween. I took a picture of the kids next to a ghoul. The host asked us how many. I said, "eight. four kids." And they took us to be seated. We walked in this roundabout way to get to the back, and I was thinking, "well, that's a stupid way to walk to the back," but didn't give it any notice. I figured maybe there were people in the way with their chairs and stuff covering the most direct route. Then we began to turn the corner. I noticed some balloons, and I thought, "those people are having a party, I wish I could go to their party." Then all of a sudden, at what seemed to be the same exact time, I noticed my parents sitting in the center of the room, and heard this huge, "SURPRISE!!!" It was UNBELIEVEABLE. I looked across the room at this HUGE crowd - of my friends and family. It wasn't like just one "surprise!" It was like a hundered "surprise's!" - one for each person I looked at and saw another face of someone I loved. It was soooo cool.

There was a Disney theme going on, with an amazing castle cake. And some really cool personalized menus my friend Tim designed. Drew told me later that there were 94 people there! Isn't that amazing? It felt like "This is Your Life," seeing all of these faces representing all of the facets of my life. Andrew covered all the bases - our family (that doesn't have to travel by plane, anyway), and friends both old and new. It was the most humbling feeling, and I felt like the luckiest person that day.

We ate dinner, had lots of margaritas (and girl scout cookie shots thanks to Tony), and watched a video Andrew prepared using 30 Disney song snippets for my 30 years. It was quite a feeling. Disbelief and awe, joy and thankfulness.

Thank you so much to everyone who came, both in person and in spirit. I was spending some time reading the cards that people brought (or sent in the mail) today, and was so touched and thankful. Our outside-Cali crew of family even sent a card together that they ALL signed (even tho they are in various States across the country). That was really cool. I'll never EVER forget this birthday. Turning 30 was awesome!

Here I am with the cool Disney Castle Cake!

Here I am the night before, at my pre-surprise, surprise party!