Since the deck is still in phase one of its renovation, we decided not to make Michael's birthday celebration a family affair this year. It would have gotten awfully crowded if everyone had to cram into our living and dining room areas.
Instead, the day after the air show, we had John, Amy & Kaiden over to our house for barbecued chicken, roasted red potatoes with garlic (M's favorite), salad, and an extra special lemon "cooler" cake that Michael picked out from Costco. The cake was surprisingly good--with just the right amount of sweetness.
The next day, on his actual birthday, we had more cake and M opened his gifts from me: a new video game (Red Dead Redemption) and guitar lessons from Five Star Guitars in Hillsboro. Playing his guitar is one of Michael's big stress relievers, and since he has been playing so much lately, I thought he might want to get a lesson or two. He likes to listen to music and play along with it--a skill that I am envious of to no end. I am pretty much a sheet music kind of girl, but Michael has the gift of being able to sit down and pick out chords to just about anything. Lucky dog. Maybe these lessons will inspire him to join a band . . . ? We shall see.
The Friday after his birthday, my parents came over and the four of us went out to dinner to celebrate again. There's a new Mexican restaurant that we had been to once before over on TV Hwy in Hillsboro and we decided to try it out again and get Mom and Dad's opinion as well. (Plus, when Michael and I had been there before, someone had celebrated a birthday and the restaurant staff sang and made a ruckus and I SO wanted to do that for Michael, especially since he had had such a "quiet" birthday at home).
The food was amazing (I am sold on their chicken fajitas) and Mom and Dad said their margaritas were very, very good. I let our waiter know that Michael was celebrating a birthday and sure enough, after we had eaten, the entire wait staff came to our table and adorned the birthday boy with a large sombrero and enormous clown glasses. He accepted them good-naturedly, and we all sang "Happy Birthday" and clapped for him.
I think the best thing happened as we were leaving. Our waiter (who was obviously still in the process of learning English as he had made a couple of mistakes earlier with our food & drink order), wished Michael a "Happy New Year." The waiter realized his error right away and corrected himself, but I thought it was a sweet mistake. It reminded me of saying the "wrong" thing a few times the year I was living in France. Michael thought it was funny and sweet, too, and it ended the evening on a humorous note.
I think, all in all, that it was a good 37th birthday. :)
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