Another one bites the dust

Yesterday was my birthday.

I'm actually pretty accustomed to having my birthday lose out to the needs of Halloween festivities. I'm also accustomed to having to plan my own celebrations because often times they don't happen unless I do.

But this year, that didn't happen. Well, mostly. But I think babysteps and kudos are deserved all the way around.

This year I gave a list of 3 things that I'd like to do to my husband. I made arrangements for my younger kids and assumed that my eldest would be bailing to hang with his friends. I only made the caveat that everybody needed to be home by 8:30.

And then I waited to see if anything would come to fruition.

A few days ago, I had a touch of anxiety and worry that nothing was going to happen. In years past, I'd tell my friends that I didn't know what was happening on my birthday because I'd hoped there were plans that I was unaware of. I'd wait to see and then discover on the day that nothing was happening,  so I'd go trick-or-treating and have some cake. I suppose people who don't have their birthdays on Halloween and have dinner at Red Robin as their back up plan versus trick-or-treating would envy me. I announced that it was fine if we didn't do anything on my birthday. If tickets weren't purchased or what have you, we didn't have to push it. The day was going to be busy enough.

I gave him a way out. But thankfully, he didn't take it.

It was a satisfyingly busy day. I woke up half an hour earlier than normal so I could turn my youngest into a zombie princess. Second year she's opted for that. I just covered her beautiful face and neck with lots of tattoo gashes and teeth marks, put on a sparkly rhinestone head band, and put her in a dressy dress. Done.

Then I was off to my second child's school to chaperone their field trip to the science museum. I had been warned to bring ear plugs but the kids were not noisy. It was a fun field trip. My group of 7 girls had 2 rabid Justin Beiber fans and when a boy who vaguely resembled Justin arrived at the museum, it was all I could do to keep them from assault and battery charges. They kept "accidentally" touching him or bumping into him and then running back to the group to tell us how they touched the Justin Beiber look alike. That poor boy. I was able to keep my girls together by having them self select buddies, inform them that they had to tell me where they were wandering off to so that I would not panic, and lastly, when I say "Potato," they say, "Potahto." It worked out pretty well. If I said potato, I knew I had their attention if they answered back potahto.

We got back home at around 3:30 PM. Disappointingly, I didn't get to wear my Jessica Rabbit costume.  I had tried it out a few days prior and did a spectacular job on the makeup. I posted pictures of the completed look on my Facebook and Google+. I had lots of positive feedback. And then showtime came and I couldn't get my eyelashes on right, the lips looked funny, the eyebrows were misshapen and  I couldn't get the wig to sit on my head correctly. So with 20 minutes to spare, I scrubbed my face, put on a pretty dress and regular makeup and ran out of the house not dressed as anything but a regular person.

My husband took me to a bar near the ferry for dinner and drinks. Then we ran off to the Underworld Rated R tour. I had hoped it was a special Halloween themed tour but it was just their adults only tour. It was really entertaining and fun. After having drinks with some of the other tour patrons post tour, we headed back towards the ferry. Having just missed it, we opted to go to the Seattle's Great Wheel ferris wheel on the waterfront.

What a spectacular view! If it hadn't been nighttime, I think I might have been a little more nervous about the height. But since it was evening, it was just a pretty time.

We came home to kids who were up too late but who had been waiting for cake since they didn't yet have enough sugar coursing through their blood streams. And I unwrapped my present -- a Duostar Karaoke set with hundreds of songs included. So excited to play!

It was a very very good day.