Egad, September was my last post?! Really? I am drafting out a couple of posts, as we just returned from a big family trip overseas Sunday morning, and noticed that I have been horribly behind in posting to this blog.
Well, let me rectify that right now.
Since my last post… My oldest daughter, 11-year-old/fifth grade, went away on her first school overnight trip to Outdoor Education down The Cape, for a week! Ugh, I was so nervous about this, but I didn’t want her to know that. She had just went to her first “not a cousin” sleepover birthday three days before this trip, and that was freaking me out enough! She was super excited to go, I secretly was too, and she was acting so grown up about it. The whole fifth grade class, with teacher chaperones, no parents allowed, went for four days. We had no contact, but prewritten letters we sent with her, and an email or two from the teachers just giving a run down of their activities. I was so sad without her.. but when she got back she was lit so bright telling me all the stories. It was one of the best days of my life watching her tell me of all the wonderful things they had done collectively, and that she made a lot of memories. 🙂
Halloween, my fav holiday of all, was a blast. Though my kids were struck with a stomach bug the days leading up to it, and on the day, we all still got dressed up.My youngest was a girly pink sugar skull and my oldest was Joy from Pixar’s movie Inside Out…and I was Cleopatra. Since they were so sick, we stuck to local trick o’treating instead of our annual big get together with our sisters. We took the car around in case of emergencies, and ended up with two kids that had no more issues so we were out for hours bumping into or walking with our local friends. It ended up a fantastic night unexpectedly.
What else? We had traveled to NYC a couple of times, in September for our Fifteenth wedding anniversary.. FIFTEEN YEARS!! How crazy is that!? My husband and I decided to jet off to SoHo, and really live it up. I love NYC, try to go often, and he surprised me with a special getaway. Just last month, we took the kids with us for our last trip there, which was a super fun trip. I was dying to go for my birthday, because we used to go all the time to check out the holidays in the city. Since our girls had never been to NYC during the holiday season, we wanted to make it a family trip. Unfortunately, we couldn’t go in December with work and stuff, so we took a weekend right after the New Year to take them. Thankfully, we caught a lot of the city still dressed up…and a lot of snow! ha We were glad to take them to Rockefeller Center to see the big tree; which now that area has a light up show across the street (where it used to be simple snowflakes..it is now a complex light show!). I was blown away! We also took them to their must see spots..i.e., Times Square for the M&M, Disney and other stores, and their favorite bagel shop. haha I love their bagels too so I liked saying “let’s go!”. We got to dine at some fun, and delicious, restaurants, Eolo, Hide Chan Ramen, and the gorgeous Refinery Hotel’s Parker and Quinn. We even got to take them to MoMA to check out an exhibit we were trying to catch and share some special moments with our artist daughter. Think that was my favorite time of the weekend, and we did so much sight-seeing.
Oh yeah. So someone had a pretty, pretty, prettttttty big birthday. <me>
I was surprised with a big bash, cause I, uhm, turned the big 4 0! YES 40! My husband got me good cause I was in shock the whole time! He had planned a trip to take the girls to see Santa down at the Jordan’s Furniture in Avon, cause we know the person that plays him. Well, my husband said we got invited to hang out with him at some Meet Santa event and I believed him because it didn’t sound so far-fetched. I went crazy getting my kids dolled up for pictures. Rushing around to get myself done up, too, in case we did family pictures… only to be told that on the way there we had to stop because my husband’s employee needed paper for a drawing job. Which does happen, we rush somewhere, only to have to drop off a ream of card-stock to someone he has working for him. So, he takes us to bring Dave paper..except Dave wasn’t answering his phone, so my husband had to go to the restaurant that Dave was working to give him the paper. This is where I am completely oblivious. So we pull up to this place, no Dave, but my husband is talking to him on the phone somehow now. But when he puts the phone down it says “Jessica”, his bff’s wife. I think he misdialed. Then we see one of our friends with her daughter getting out of the car. My husband rolls down the window, says hi along with other words I don’t remember hearing, then she goes inside the restaurant. Ok, so my husband isn’t getting out of the car, so I am about to nudge him to see what was up..and all of a sudden it’s like a crazy scene from Big Fish. You know the part when the son sees everyone at his father’s funeral? A circus of people with stories. Well. Everyone I care about in my life starts pouring out of the front doors, flooding the sidewalk in the front. I am still not following what is up cause all I say is, “what is going on here? Why is Jessica here? and my Mom? and your Sister?”, and I start crying cause it struck me all at once. A SURPRISE PARTY!! My kids are screaming, “what is going on daddy?”, cause they had no clue either.
He grabbed my hand and said,”what is the one thing you always want to do? Have brunch with your family and friends, right? Well, we are having brunch…”. He put together this big party all by himself! <–holy moly right?! …I had one of the best surprises of my life. Surprising me is super hard, and he pulled off a perfect day for me. (Thank you so much for all that you planned, love!! You know how much that meant to me and will always stay in my heart. You are my bestest friend and favorite person.) Though we never went to meet Santa for holiday photos hahah jk jk!!
Ok, I think that is the best, and quickest, update I can put out there at this second. I will be posting about my big trip this week, so keep an eye out!
Valeria Out Loud 