Dan's 30th Birthday

...was on Thursday, August 4th. To celebrate, he went golfing with his Dad, brother-in-law, Glenn, & his brother, Tom. I had arranged a birthday dinner at his favorite restaurant, Don Pablo’s, & invited his best friend, Greg, & Greg’s girlfriend, Amanda, to join us. His birthday present from me was a new Sirius satellite radio for his truck & I baked him his favorite cake: After dinner & drinks, the 4 of us went back to our house & had cake & ice cream.

Since Dan was turning the big 3-0 I thought it was appropriate to have a surprise party. He usually despises his birthday & definitely doesn’t look forward to it each year, but this year he was open to the idea of celebrating & even welcomed turning 30. I coordinated with a bar in Ashburn a little over a month before August to have the party (Ashburn Sports Bar & Grill); I also took him there for dinner several weeks before to make sure he liked it & also liked the food.

We had part of the bar filled with family & friends, including my family who was nice enough to make the trip. Dan was totally surprised & even though I thought he knew exactly what was going on a few weeks before the party, he had absolutely no idea - thankfully. =]

Now on to the photos! Below is a video that I took when Dan walked into the bar & everyone yelled “surprise!”

Unfortunately, I cut the video short just as he was saying “now this is a surprise!” He was so cute & very happy.

I also put together a slideshow due to the amount of photos that I took, friends took & family took. Enjoy!


We all had a great time & of course the birthday boy did too. Throughout the night he made comments to me such as, “this is so nice;” “I’ve never been surprised like this before;” “you did a great job;” “I had no idea!” “Thank you so much.” All of the stress that came with planning this party & trying to keep it a secret was well worth it when I saw the smile on his face as he walked in the door.

Happy Birthday, my love. You deserve only the best & I hope you enjoyed yourself on your special day.

Bummed

Towards the end of summer I came up with 3 activities that I wanted to do. I figured if one of them didn't pan out then I could just move on to the next. Those 3 activities are: (1) boxing, (2) roller derby, and (3) play in a women's basketball league.

Boxing has been in the back of my mind for a while now, but I just never had enough guts to actually pursue it. I decided to take a kickboxing class at LA Boxing to see if I really enjoyed it & then I could go from there; I went with my friend, Amanda, who also wanted to try it out. The class was a fantastic work out & it totally kicked my ass - I loved it. The whole kicking concept got a little old once my shins started to bruise/become raw, but I loved the boxing. After the class was over & we were stretching, the instructor informed us of their "Amateur Night" & how you can only participate if you're a member of the gym & have been properly trained. That is exactly what I want to do - I'd like to take lessons/be trained how to box & then at the end of my training I want to spar with someone who is of equal talent. After listening to LA Boxing's rates, I realized that my plan may not pan out exactly as I had hoped. The monthly rate was ridiculous & on top of that you had to pay your trainer their hourly rate for individual lessons. I just couldn't justify spending that much money, nor could I afford it for as long as I would need it. At this point I'm still at square one, but I refuse to give up on this idea. Now....on to activity #2.

Roller Derby is offered through our county & it's a one time annual fee to participate; the team is also involved in local community service & sponsors several groups in our area. I came across the website about a week after my whole boxing let down & got pretty excited. After doing some research on the sport, I had decided to sign up for their email list & also planned on attending their "Booty Camp" in October. After a few weeks of searching for gear, i.e. roller skates, pads, helmet, an email was sent by their captain stating that some of the people who are interested in their team may have the wrong idea of their type of roller derby. They don't practice, they don't keep score at their "scrimmages" & they don't incorporate all of the rules of normal roller derby. Basically, if I am looking for a competitive team, I needed to go elsewhere & she listed the website for the DC Rollergirls website. Well, DC is way too far for me to be traveling 3 to 4 nights a week for practices, including games which are also played in Richmond (insert frustration here). I was pretty bummed by this. Now...on to activity #3.

Joining a women's basketball league should be pretty easy, right? Well, apparently I just have no luck with these things. The first website I went to, which was recommended to me, I already missed the cut off to sign up & the others that I went to only allow "team" sign ups, which means you can't sign up as an individual & have them place you on a team - you have to have a minimum of 6 players per team. Unfortunately, I don't know 6 women that would be interested in joining a team, who also know how to play the game & lives in Loudoun County. Ugh! My first thought after striking out at all of the above was...really? You would think that living in a state like Virginia, instead of Pennsylvania, I would have access to a lot more opportunities & be able to make certain things happen.

I'm hoping that within the next month I will be able to inform all of you that one of these activities is being done or I will have other ideas to pursue. Everyone cross your fingers for me!

My Love...