The BIG 3-0

The last few months have been incredibly busy for Ashley and I as we have had family in town, gone out of town, and embarked on a new chapter of our life together... no, we are not planning the arrival of a new member of our family.  I hope to share some of those experiences through the lens of my experience, but first the BIG 3-0!!!


Birthdays represent a jumbled bad of emotions, for some it invokes fear, the fear of aging while for others it represents hope, hope for the future, for progression, for a better life.  Whatever you may feel about birthdays, I hope that it is a day that you can feel special and appreciated.  My birthday did invoke feelings, feelings of gratitude as I felt an outpouring of love and caring by those closest to me, both near and far.  But what this birthday really showed me more than anything else is that the woman I married is absolutely incredible, amazing, and loves me, probably more than I love myself!


To start, Ashley planned a spectacular surprise birthday party for me.  Which stayed a secret right up until the day of the party when I used my deductive powers to figure out what was going on.  That being said, I was pretty impressed with the powers of deception, I mean misdirection, that Ashley employed to prepare for the party right beneath my nose!  She basically baked the entire cake with me in the same room as her and I had no idea it was for me!  Ashley told me it was for the Relief Society's birthday activity at church, which was indeed the same day as my surprise birthday party.  Sneaky I tell you. 

Aside from the incredible effort to plan a surprise birthday party and invite all the guests, the execution of the party blew me away!  First off, Ashley arranged to have my party at Dave and Busters.  For those unfamiliar with the franchise, it is a restaurant and an ARCADE!  Ashley knows how much I loved going to arcades growing up and nailed it when she set up my BIG 3-0 party at the arcade!  It was good friends, good food, and good times.  As my former bishop, Bishop Klein used to say its a DBRU day. (Dead Bloated Rhino Underfoot... just imagine you are a vulture flying around with your pals when you scout out a dead bloated rhino underfoot... there you are enjoying nice weather, with good food and good friends... not too much better than that.)  The part that truly blew me away was the cake!  I mean look at that thing!  Spider-man saving the day in the Big Apple and taking the time to celebrate my birthday!  One of the most awesome birthday cakes ever!


If this was where my birthday celebration ended, it would have been memorable... but it became even more memorable!  On my birthday Ashley blew up tons of balloons in which she had put little love messages in so that I would have to pop them to get them out.  I had a blast doing that over the next week or so... stomping, stabbing some, accidentally moving objects into them, and probably my favorite was flying my RC helicopter Phil got me into them to pop them... a lot harder than you would think!  And then came my birthday gift from Ashley... disc golf shoes!  If you had no idea that actual disc golf shoes exist, they do... check them out here.  (My actual shoes are no longer produced, but you can get the idea.)  I was so ecstatic!  I have been using them for three months now and they have kept my feet dry and give great grip! 


And my birthday did not end there... perhaps the older we get the longer we extend the celebrations... if I make it to 100 I'm pretty sure I'm going to celebrate every day as if it my birthday! Anyhow, Ashley and I traveled to San Antonio to visit Mark Schwendiman and his family for Mark's BIG 3-0 just 17 days after mine.  We tried to just show up and surprise him, but in the end he knew we were coming.  Mark got a lot of board games for his birthday and his family also got me a great game too!  So, it was the weekend of games!  We had a lot of fun and celebrated my birthday once again with the Schwendimans. 


In closing, I am so grateful to those who I count as friends.  Many people wished me happy birthday by phone, mail, email, and even facebook.  Each message made that day great!  I am so grateful to my parents for making the decision to have children, and then to make the effort to raise me and provide for me.  Now for my next 30 years!