Happy Birthday to Me!

We had a good time this weekend. Like most of her visits, Mom's trip seemed too short-lived. I always try to mix up her visit with two distinct days. Friday night is typically used for catching up. Saturday is used to go out and about, usually to Brownsville, McAllen or South Padre Island. Sunday we try to do nothing. Mom's schedule is more hectic than mine, so her ability to sit and do nothing is rare. I like to offer her the chance to do that on her visits. I know she appreciates it.

Saturday was my birthday. As my sister reminded me when she called (a day late), I'm only one year from thirty! That's okay, I'll get over it. The last year of my twenties will hopefully be eventful.

I liked the fact that I got to spend my birthday with my mother. We haven't been able to do that in YEARS. It was a great present. Buddy made me a fantastic breakfast! He made avocado scrambled eggs and French Toast. He was trying different ways of making the two common dishes. He did VERY well. We then went to McAllen to mill about for the day.

I got a couple of books at Barnes & Noble. He got another Toronto travel guide for our trip. With Paw-Paw's extension of the vacation to 10 days, we should be quite armed with things to do. We might even teach Anthony and Kim some things about their city. Mom also got an arm-full of books that she bought. Maybe that's where I get my late-bloomed love of reading.

We then took a turn to Bed, Bath & Beyond. Mom gave me a choice of either a check or buying the check's dollar amount worth of gifts all day. I chose the latter, but didn't use the money on the books! Everything was spent at BB&B. I got a wicker basket for Buddy and I to put our things (laptops, cases, etc.) in when we're home so they don't sit out on the floor. I got those nifty Dream Drawer organizing tools, some Hercules Hooks, two photo albums for keeping some of our photos out on the coffee table, two frames for pictures of my trip to Europe and four different boxes for organizing the rest of our photos that don't end up on walls or in albums. I was truly happy with that trip.

Finally, we ended up going to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. The wait was forty five minutes, which was fine since we had thirteen fist-fulls of peanuts each. We all had a great dinner, and despite my warning not to, Buddy told them it was my birthday. I had to get on a saddle. A saddle. Me, on a saddle. My mother took a picture on her camera phone. I'm going to find THE most embarrassing place to have a birthday for Buddy next year and go there ... and for good measure, I might do that sometime next month too.


Anywho, after we got home I went crazy hanging up picture frames, moving picture frames, measuring for a new 18x24 of Big Ben, etc. Actually, I have to decide which picture I want to enlarge. It will either be a photo of Big Ben or an AWESOME picture I took in Belgium of the sun setting over the English Channel. The Big Ben pic would be unmistakably Europe, but the sunset picture is so cool. I'll figure it out, I guess. But, I had a lot of fun doing all of that yesterday.

It was a great weekend. :) Now I'm SUPER ready for Toronto!