The Other Thirty-Something

Yes, yes, I too am now thirty. Viv has been easing me into this new decade of life for the better part of a year by pointing out my gray hairs from the passenger seat while we drive together. Overall I was set to have a low-key 30th as I am not big on my own birthday in general. I even joked with Viv that 30 is only a big deal because humans count using the decimal system. Al later joked that only an engineer would think of something like that.

Nevertheless, others found this birthday to be special and wanted to mark it with a celebration that I didn't even know about until the last minute. I had suspected a surprise party was in the works, but as the date approached, Viv threw me off the scent. She kept saying that she would have to work on my birthday which I only half believed. However, on the morning of my birthday, she left for work. Throughout the day, I got calls from her at work. I called her at work. Actually, her secretary would answer and "transfer" me to her desk. So all signs pointed to no surprise. Later I went out to the movies with Geoff. Viv had really pushed for me to do this because she had felt bad about her working all day. Little did I know that Geoff, Viv's secretary, neighbors, and family were all in on the deception. As it turned out, Viv was actually across the street at our neighbor's house all day prepping food for the party. Her secretary spent the day forwarding and routing her calls through work (it had me fooled). Geoff kept me busy at the movies while the house got decorated.

We got home from the theater and I was greeted with an emphatic, "SURPRISE!" as I came through the door. It was a lot of fun.

BTW, if you haven't gathered this already from the photos, the party was 70's themed.

1st Christmas...Lists

Here's a quick collection of photos from this past Christmas. Of note this year was the fact that Marielle was able, for the first time, to convey what she really wanted most from Santa Claus for being a good little girl all year. She told us she wanted "an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle..." I kid, I kid. While we were in a little toy store in Seattle, Marielle fell in love with this Hello Kitty jewelry/music box. Following our trip, the music box found its way to the top of her list. Not just any music box would do. Her description was very exact in clarifying that Hello Kitty must be on it. With our help, Harper settled on dinosaurs. Over the past several weeks Harper has taken quite a liking to them. She gravitates towards the miniature dinosaur figurines at Grand Rabbit's Toys and imitates them with very convincing and, might I add, ferocious little "raaaaawwrrrs."

As always it was a wonderful holiday season full of friends and family. We also managed to include the customary driving up and down the front range although this year much of the driving was done by others coming over to our house for Christmas Dinner. Thanks everyone.

Visiting the Thirty-Somethings in Seattle

This past December marked not one but two 30th birthdays. The first was celebrated in Seattle while the second will be covered in a later post.

We went to visit Jen, Jason, and Anthony out in Seattle for her 30th birthday. After getting married last August, Jen and Jason headed out to Seattle to grow her business. I've only been to the Pacific Northwest a few times, but I really like it. Mostly, I like dreary weather which Seattle and its surroundings are known for. However, just as Colorado's snowfall is a bit overrated (Californians, ignore that last fact), so is Seattle's rainfall. In fact, it was quite nice while we were there and it only rained the last day.

We spent the first few days of our trip trying to see sites. I do say, "try" because any of you with small children will agree that it's hard to stick to any semblance of an itinerary when trying to figure in naps, meals, and potty breaks. Our girls are great little travelers, but even three plus years into parenthood, I still have too high of expectations for them in that I think we should be able to travel like the Marc and Viv duo used to (ask what that means in the comments). I don't know why I still strive for that because every trip Viv and I took together had us returning exhausted and wishing that we'd taken things slower. We had set out to see some kid-friendly sites for the kids, wanted to tour some unique home furnishing stores that we'd seen in an issue of Domino (one of our new favorite magazines thanks to my Grandfather's subscription), and try every noodle restaurant we could find.

When the weekend hit, we had Jen, Jason, and Anthony show us around. They took us out to Ikea, which, shockingly, does not yet exist in Denver, and several great restaurants. We were treated to a great breakfast diner, sushi at a place called...wait for it...I Love Sushi, and a Sunday brunch with more offerings than I've ever seen in my life! Over the course of our visit, the Pike Place Market had become a recurring theme. We kept finding ourselves there, which ended up being both good and bad. Good in that we found the best chocolate glazed mini donuts, bad in that I got a Venti Peppermint Mocha Twist at the Original Starbucks while our kids were having a meltdown (FYI, Original Starbucks = WORST STARBUCKS EVER! They couldn't have been slower), and good again when we were exposed to the Russian pastries of Piroshky Piroshky. Seriously, I could write a whole post about Piroshky Piroshky (I'm sure many bloggers have).

It was great to see Jen, Jason, and Anthony, and see that they are loving the Seattle area.