My Birthday

I celebrated my birthday a few weeks ago.  The last few years, my birthday's have gained a slight reputation of being on the bad side.  Two years ago, my beloved and wonderful husband totally forgot it.  He had an excuse, he had court the next day to defend himself from being sued and had remembered my birthday for the days leading up to it, but it escaped his mind entirely the day of.  Last year, while planning where to celebrate with a nice dinner, Tiny E somehow poked herself in the eye REALLY bad and cried for over an hour while we conceded and warmed up frozen spaghetti.  This year, I found myself driving on the top of a mountain amidst the worst snow conditions I have ever driven in.  There is more to it, but you can see the pattern here.  Nothing I would define as epically bad, but still.......Anyway, I wanted to record that weekend I spent, cause it was an interesting time.

My birthday fell on a Friday, and it happened to fall the weekend that Breaking Dawn Part 1 came out (for those of you that follow my life, you would know that my family has a strange tradition of seeing these movies up in Wyoming in this crappy theater together.  More on that in a bit.) Also, my sister in law Bronwyn was in her very first play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as a made up fairy "Foxglove" at the local college.  Also, my dad was speaking in church that Sunday and planned to tell some life experiences he doesn't share very much.  It was a total no brainer to go up there.  So my sister Cat and her son Booker, my sister Sue and me and my girls headed out on Friday afternoon in two cars.  We were making good time until we were about 2 hours away, the snow started to fall.  No problem, we just needed to be there by 7:30, to make B's play that night.  We had plenty of time.  Did I mention that my family lives on the other side of the infamous "South Pass"?  This is an infamous place in Mormon Pioneer stories, it is the place that the Martin and Willy Handcart Company got stuck in a winter storm that caused a lot of suffering and many to lose their lives and had to be rescued.  Anyway, we were making our way through this pass with some MAJOR snowfall.  You know the kind that pretty much blinds you?  The very lucky thing was that there was miraculously no wind.  South Pass winds are legendary.  They cause the pass to close a lot in the winter cause they are menacing and blow semi trucks down and little cars right away.  Speaking of closing, they closed the pass that night WHILE we were in it.  We must have barely made it in there before they closed it, and there was an official vehicle waiting at the other closure, waiting for us last crazy people to get out so they could lower the gate. 

Yeah, my skills got us through without one slip (with the help of the 4 new tires Rob had made sure were on there before our trip).  Man, it was a good thing we had those things.  It didn't get any better off the pass, we still had a 30 minute drive to Riverton, which took waaaay longer then that.  We didn't make much of the play.  We made it for the last few acts and pretty much missed B's entire performance.  My birthday dinner was wolfing down my requested sweet and sour chicken cold my sister had lovingly prepared in my honor and then left the girls with Cat, who decided the play was a total loss and skipped it.  It could have been worse, I could have spent my birthday dying on the top of a mountain as a tin can a semi ran over.  OR, it could have been spent turning around because the pass was closed and spending the night in a flea bag hotel in Rock Springs.  We shuddered over that thought more then the dying one.  So we triumphed South Pass, not a bad birthday after all I say. 

Sadly though, early that afternoon a beloved member of their community and orthodontist to my nieces and nephews, crashed his plane and was killed.  This is the man that makes his own fireworks and then puts on a free show every 4th of July that totally kicks butt (spoken about in a previous post, here).  So sad.  He was a good friend to my family and husband and father to his family, was a good support to B when she joined the church and is very missed by all.  Kind of sad it happened on my birthday, it's weird to think that day will be such a sad day for his family for the rest of their lives.

The next day was Saturday and we went to a matinee of Breaking Dawn.  I don't want to complain or anything, but the movie was legitimately pretty good and the theater had gotten a new sound system and the generator had been replaced and the audience was pretty quiet also- Taylor Lautner has obviously noticed the way his voice sounds when he talks and modified it this time  (WHERE IS THE FUN IN THAT????).  Luckily, the movie did give us some gems such as the werewolf pack conversation.  I sure missed that generator going off every 15 minutes or so, picking it's times to go eeeerrrrrrrrrrrrr...bumbumbumbumbum..... during a particularly brooding Edward moment.  The theater did seem to want to at least remind us where we were at the very end and produced a loud and nondescript crash somewhere in it's annals at the very last poignant and quiet scene.  Thanks old friend, you still have it in you, at least a little.

We were in our own that night, Amy and Scott had their company party that night, but in true form, mama bird made us a yummy casserole before she left.  We hung out that evening with my parents and watched a movie, then at about 10 they decided to head home (they live in Riverton too, but when we come to town, we stay at my sister's house).  Anyway, my parents had taken separate cars, coming at separate times, so they left in two different cars.  Shortly thereafter, I saw to my crying baby and then went back downstairs in time to see my brother shoot up and say, "you did WHAT?"  Turns out he was on the phone talking to my dad who had just rolled his truck on the ice.  He had called 911 before Matt (surprisingly, if you know him), and thought he better let us know what's going on.  We couldn't believe it.  We immediately bundled up and drove to where he was, thinking that he could be in shock and hurt worse then he thinks, which was not hurt at all according to him.  Amy and Scott were still gone and my mom wasn't answering her phone.  We got to the scene and there was a police car there already and surprisingly- Amy and Scott.  They had driven past and seen his truck there.  My dad was fine!  Crazy guy was fine.  The police man called the ambulance anyway just to be sure, we were glad, as we think we should be a bit cautious seeing as he is the "octo dad" and by that I mean he had 8 bypasses this summer on his heart.  He didn't have a scratch on him!  While they were checking him out we noticed that we were about 7 people standing on the side of the road in like 0 degree weather at 11 at night next to an ambulance, a cop, and a rolled truck- laughing and making jokes.  Don't come across that every day.  I took a picture on my phone and didn't send it to anyone and my phone has been washed since and is dead, so I guess those pics are gone forever.  I am sad, cause it is quite the memory.

The next day was Sunday, and at nine o'clock that morning, my dad stood up at church and delivered his talk.  Scott told him that he is a hard man to kill and he is right.  This world is not through with him yet and for that I am grateful.  I am not ready to be without him, and I am glad someone agrees with me.  After church Sue, Cat, Scout and I went to the first part of B's play for the matinee.  I am glad we did, it was fun seeing B and it was Scout's first play and she liked it.  In fact, B's part was pretty much done, so we all agreed to slip out and I told Scout and she said that she wanted to watch the fairy princess (Titania) wake up and see who she falls in love with.  I love that she was following along and liked it and wanted to know what happened next.  I loved that she had no idea that it was going to turn out to be a man that was turned into an ass.  I knew she would get a kick out of that.  She loved that group of guys (Bottom and company) and laughed really hard when they were on stage and I wish she could have seen the play they put on, she would have loved it.  We'll take her again when she is a few years older.  Good to know she enjoyed it though.

We went home that next morning and had a beautiful clear day and two of the best behaved little girls on the planet.  I can't think of one thing to complain about them on that drive home.  They were fabulous.  We got home and gave Rob a big hug and Lola sure was glad to see us too.

Notable moments to remember:

The giant Twilight cups and my disgust that I got Bella.  Then, Matt offering to go back to get me an Edward cup and then thinking it through in his head that he would have to ask the girl for the Edward one.

Leprechan Puck

Matt imitating leprechan Puck

Watching Paranormal Activity 2:  B staying awake the entire time and not watching a second of it, then asking us questions to get the story clear, Kyle's creepy room happenings and my rational explanation of the circumstances.

Did I forget anything?  I know I did, but I am out of ideas tonight.

I promise I didn't forget Hunch Cat.  I will NEVER forget Hunch Cat.  We watched that video on Amy's big screen tv I am not lying- no less then 50 times.  It kept getting funnier and funnier and I will NEVER ever not laugh upon viewing hunch cat.  I laughed just as hard on viewing number 49 as I did on viewing number 2.

I dedicate this video to my fellow hunch cat peeps, you know who you are and I know you are going to laugh:

For all of you that haven't seen Hunch Cat, first of all: you're welcome and second, do yourself a favor and watch it at least 3 times back to back. 

(Or 50 as we did.)