Sixth time's the charm

Up until yesterday I have never done a good job with Brandon's birthday.  NEVER!  I've just never been able to get it together to give him the totally awesome day he deserves.  What makes it even worse is that two months after I totally suck at celebrating his birthday he turns around and spoils me rotten for mine  Every year I vow that I will get it right, but every year for 5 years I have failed miserably.  Let's recap:

Year One: Brandon and I officially decided to be boy friend and girl friend about a week before Brandon's 24th birthday.  I'd only known him about 3 months and I had no idea what he wanted for a gift.  I bought him a CD with our song on it.  That night we walked around downtown Logan and happened to see my dream wedding dress in the window of Levan's.

Year Two:  We'd been married 6 months and were living the starving college student life.  No car, on campus jobs, and a closet for a home.  We'd also just been on a road trip to Arizona with Brandon's family for his twin brother's wedding.  We were exhausted and probably broke.  I think we just went out to eat at Angie's.

Year Three:  I'd graduated, was working full time, and we'd moved to a bigger place.  So financially things were better.  However, my sister had just got married and we were majorly involved in planning and decorating her reception.  Plus we'd done a lot for Thanksgiving.  I surprised Brandon with a sander, and called it good.

Year Four:   The cosmos aligned against me and Brandon's birthday fell on The Monday After Thanksgiving (cue ominous music).  It was all I could do to pull myself out of bed and get to my desk at work.  That night I took Brandon out to dinner at one of Logan's fancier restaurants, and bought him a battery pack for his saw.     

Year Five:  The girls were due the day before Brandon's birthday.  So I planned accordingly.  I moved his birthday to September and surprised him with a home made dinner then.  However, on his actual birthday Brandon forgot all about my earlier efforts.  He was morose all day.  It didn't help that I was still trying to breastfeed both girls and so I was both physically and emotionally unavailable (the very next day is when I started alternating bottle feedings).  The saddest part of the day was when Brandon had to frost his own cake.  That night he confessed that he felt he had never had a good birthday (boy, did that make me feel good).  He told me that all he wanted for his birthday the next year was a surprise, and that I had a year to plan it.    

Year Six:  Well a year of advance notice and a full serving of guilt did the trick.  I think I finally got it right this year AND made up for 5 not so great years.  Here is what we did for Brandon's 29th birthday.

We started out the day with cake.  A Midnight Delight Ice cream Cake from Coldstone to be exact.   My friend gave me a Cold Stone gift card as a thank you for speaking about food storage at her ward.  I figured an ice cream cake would be good because then I wouldn't have to worry about frosting it - or cooking it for that matter.    

 The cake was small, but it was so good!  We only ate about half of it because it was so rich.  Brandon's first present of the day was a box full of his favorite candy, salt water taffy (which I have never bought him until now) and a blindfold.  He said he wanted to be surprised and I made sure he would be.

 The girls loved the cake too.  I think they wondered why they didn't get that kind of cake for their birthday. We had the cake in the morning because I wanted the girls to be apart of Brandon's birthday.  This is the only thing they were a part of.  As soon as they were cleaned off and had a quick nap, we put them in the car and drove out to my parents.

At my parents house we hung around just long enough for the girls to start ignoring us.  Then after a kiss goodbye we left them for the rest of the day and NIGHT.

I made Brandon put on his blindfold and took him to In and Out Burger.  Somehow we have never been there to eat yet.  We both got cheeseburgers, and decided that the place really is worth all the hype.    

 We had some time to kill before my next surprise so we walked around the Valley Fair Mall.  That place has really improved in the past few years.  Once we were done window shopping there Brandon suggested we go to the Army and Navy store.  We drove over there and had a fun time looking at everything.  We checked out the tents because we are going to need a bigger one in the next summer or two.  I saw this bumper sticker that is sadly too true for my family right now (anyone want an overweight incontinent cat?)

Once we were back in the jeep I made Brandon put on his blindfold again.  Even though he said it made him a little sick he was a good sport and wore it all the way to Mrs Cavanaugh's Chocolate factory where I'd made an appointment for a tour.  We learned all about hand dipping chocolates, the history of the family owned company, and the history of chocolate.  We were able to watch the workers through a window.  Part of the tour included watching the classic I Love Lucy segment where Lucy goes to work in a candy factory - hilarious.  At the end of the tour we were given free samples.  We also each picked out one piece of candy to buy.  Brandon got a rum something or other and I got a mint truffle.  Yummy!

 In the jeep I let Brandon unwrap his next present.  It was a sourly needed new wallet.  He got his last one before his mission - 10 years ago!  I told him it was a good luck wallet and now he would make lots of money to go in it.  That wallet really must be lucky because he was called twice about job interviews.  Add the call he got the day before and that makes a total of three this week - so far!

 Inside the wallet was a present from my parents.  It was a gift card to any of the Temple Square Hospitality restaurants.  I'd decided that we would go to the Garden Restaurant because despite the fact that my dad has worked for TSH for 18 years I've never been there.  The food and the view were amazing.  Brandon had the smoked sea bass and I had the something chicken sandwich.  Did I say AMAZING!  

The final surprise of the night was reveled in the next present Brandon opened.  He got a box of screws and tickets to a Bar J Wrangler concert that night.  Every year Brandon and I talk about going to a Bar J Wrangler Christmas Concert, but we've never gone.  About a month ago I'd been wracking my brain for what to do for Brandon's birthday.  Then a saw a sign advertising a Bar J Wrangler concert in Woods Cross on November 30.  I figured inspiration couldn't come any clearer than that, and I bought general admission tickets right away.

Brandon had been surprised by every thing so far, but this was the biggest surprise of them all.  I'd done such a good job of keeping my plans a secret that he thought I didn't even want to go see the Bar J Wranglers.  Even when he saw the tickets he was still in disbelief that we were really going.  

The concert was great. I've never seen these guys preform, but Brandon has told me stories about the performances he's been to up at the Chuck Wagon in Jackson Wyoming.  These guys didn't disappoint.  The preformed my favorite type of comedy - banter, and I laughed so hard at all their jokes.  The singing and music was great too.  I highly recommend these guys.         

 When we finally made it back to the apartment we found another surprise.  The sister missionaries had dropped off a cake for Brandon.  He's the branch mission leader and we see the sisters about once a week so we are all pretty good friends.  I'm really going to miss Sister Hill when she gets transferred.  After all the food we'd eaten all day (leave it to a pregnant lady to plan a day full of food) we could hardly eat a slice each, but we did.

Then I gave Brandon his final present.  A bag full of more Salt Water Taffy and a 7/16ths drill bit (do you have any idea how hard that size is to find).  We'd rented Captain America from Redbox so we sat back and watched the movie without worrying about waking up the babies -who I did call and check up on. They went to sleep at 7:00 and as far as anyone would tell me had been just fine all day.  

The movie was really good and we were glad we finally got around to seeing it.  I'm kind of a closet nerd so it was really fun for me to see Captain America and the Red Skull in something other than animated Spiderman episodes.  Then we watched the How It Should Have Ended version of the movie and enjoyed that.

And then it was midnight and Brandon's birthday was over.  We went to bed with every intention of sleeping soundly all night.  However we were woken up by a windstorm that was buffeting our apartment.  The power shut off and so when we went to pick up the girls we decided to just stay the night at my parents rather than come back to a cold apartment.