Last Few Weeks...

The last few weeks have been crazy. First, I planned, executed and pulled off a surprise 40th birthday 'get together' for Barry. It was kind of a last minute plan, since our Las Vegas/Phoenix trip kind of fell through. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure that it was a surprise at all. I thought he knew something was up, so it felt like we were politely avoiding the topic for a couple of weeks. As it turned out, he was indeed surprised, and everyone showed up. A good time was had by all. I reserved some tables (and by some, I mean for 30 people) and we kind of took over an entire area of the pub. As other people left, we kept absorbing more tables. It was nice to have it out of the house. After the night was over, we simply went home. Nothing to clean up! And not a bunch of left over food to eat!

As I was in NYC for his ACTUAL birthday I really wanted to do something before I left. We’re so darn lucky to have the people in our lives that we do. This was his birthday cake, the picture is the same one I used for invitations. STILL loving photoshop!

And of course, NYC. Wow… What can I say? We went, we saw, we conquered, we walked, we got honked at, we ate, we shopped, we drank coffee, we saw, we did all the sight seeing, we took tons of pictures. We fit more into a week, that one could imagine. What a fantastic trip, with these fantastic ladies.

Not a great shot of the tee's, but let me assure you, they were SUPER cute. Funny, I didn't take a close up picture of the shirts. We all showed up at the airport, dutifully wearing them. What a bunch of sports. To have our photo taken and all... Can't start a trip without a photo shoot.

We all got along very well. When we arrived in New York, all 13 of us walked down to Times Square [wow...] and meandered in and out of stores. I have no idea what time stuff actually closed, because at 11 pm, there were hoards of people in and out of stores. The next morning, all of us went on our first bus tour, to get ourselves acquainted with New York [yeah right...] I think at one point 9 of us got off, 4 carried on, and we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. The only other time the 13 of us were together again, was when we saw Billy Elliot, [which was awesome] and for our one dinner, which we'd made reservations for a month in advance, at Spice Market [highly recommend] and all had to split up into smaller groups.

We had so much fun. And we got so much packed into our short time there, that it seemed unreal. And now I'm home, and having a hard time getting off the couch. Hard to believe that for a week, we probably walked between 5-8 hours a day or more, and now I'm hanging out at home like a sloth. I need to get more active! It feels great to be more active! I'm eager to get into my scrapbook room, and do some birthday and New York layouts. I'm really looking forward to getting some pages/albums done.

And now we're into October. The kids begged me to bring out the Halloween stuff today, so today we 'spooked' up the house some. It's fun when they want to get involved in helping. That only lasts so long though, then they grow tiresome and I'm the only one doing it. We LOVE Halloween around here, so we're on the countdown. Madelyn has her costume already. She's going to be a chicken....[No WAY we could change her mind on that one] Mason is still a bit unsure of what he'd like to be yet, though when Indiana Jones was suggested, he seemed somewhat interested.

There was a bit of snow here today, which isn't too much fun. So it's a bit cold, and it's getting dark so darn early now. It's depressing. I have a really hard time with fall. I wish I could embrace it a bit more. If I could hibernate, I'd be ALL OVER embracing it, I know!