Birthday Celebration

So I mentioned the other day that part of my “downfall” on the work out wagon last week was the birthday celebrations that I partook in. Is partook an actual word? I’m not sure, but you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, the reason for this is because it turned into a three-day long celebration.

Here’s how it all went down. Mr. CC had been being secretive about my birthday surprise for the last few weeks. Since I love surprises (NOT!) I was on pins and needles trying to wait patiently for the big day. Yeah, I don’t do that well either, and since Mr. CC is HORRIBLE at keeping secrets, I kinda knew what was happening beforehand. But since I wasn’t 100% sure what it was, I wouldn’t confess what I thought it was to Mr. CC when he asked.

So, the big day rolls around. It’s an odd year for me, 33. I can’t think of too many people that celebrate 33 really big. But in my family, growing up your birthday was YOUR day. It was the one day a year that was solely about YOU – and lucky for me, Mr. CC was raised the same way so we celebrate our birthdays in BIG ways.

5 minutes before midnight the night before my birthday I got my first “happy birthday.”

Then I got a sweet “happy birthday” good-bye kiss as he made his way off to work while I was still snoozing away.

He had already told me that his goal was to actually tell me “Happy Birthday” 33 times throughout the day. It was fun to count and keep track of it all! Little did I know that his actual intent was to say it 33 times over the course of the celebrations. Dinner was my choice that night, and after a stressful week at work, moving offices all the previous two days, I was pooped. Mr. CC’s parents called to see if they could take us to lunch. I begged off, being too tired and just wanting to sit and do nothing. We ended up eating leftovers and watching a movie of my choice. I think that it was “. I’m really a homebody, and was really looking forward to our birthday celebration the next day.

I was only told that I would need an overnight bag and be prepared to make lots of decisions on what I wanted to eat, what I wanted to do, and where I wanted to go. Are you noticing a pattern here? It was all about ME, which was SO cool!

So we slept late. I got up way before Mr. CC, which is the way that it works sometimes, and I worked on our guestbook rings. I LOVE sewing and having a project to work on, but since I have to sit at our dining room table to do it, I try to just work on things in stages when Mr. CC isn’t around. Him sleeping late was the perfect excuse for me to get some sewing time in.

But once he was up and about, we got all packed up and headed out. We stopped for a quick brunch and then the shopping commenced. We went to several stores, and once it started to get really hot outside we headed for the mall. Mr. CC had gotten a good chuckle the night before when I asked if the weekend was all about me, if that included him taking me to get my brows done…

The mall was nice and all in all, I scored a new pair of shoes, a new pair of earrings, a new dress, a pair of pants and unlimited shopping at VS! Plus the eyebrow wax. Sweet! About this time I got all pooped out. It was time for the big reveal. Where we were going to stay.

A long time ago, when Mr. CC and I first dated, we were strolling through an eclectic part of Austin, South Congress district, aka SoCo. I pointed out this quaint little hotel that I had admired and fell in love with upon first sight when I moved to Austin several years earlier. Mr. CC, being the romantic that he is, remembered this conversation and booked us a night’s stay at the hotel. May I present to you the Hotel San Jose…

Isn’t it gorgeous!?!?!

Check out those gardens?!?!

(source photo 1, 2, 3)

I loved every minute of it. We checked in and settled our bags and looked around for a few minutes. Then we headed up the street to Guerro’s Taco Bar for some tasty margaritas. A few of those later and I was ready to get ready for dinner. Mr. CC took me to a favorite of ours, the Macaroni Grill. I know, it’s just a big chain restaurant, but we never go there to eat and it’s SO yummy! Since pasta isn’t really on our diets, I knew that this would be a treat worthy of a birthday celebration.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and dropped off our truck, called a cab and headed down to 6th street. We have a favorite bar/pub on 6th street in Austin, a little place called B.D. Riley’s. It’s a good bar for some live jazz/blues type of music, and we’re never disappointed when we go there. We hung out there for a few hours and were then ready to call it quits. We took a cab back to our hotel and settled in for a long sleep. It was really nice.

The rest of the weekend followed those same basic guidelines. Whatever I wanted to do, we did. Wherever I wanted to go, we went. Whatever show/movie I wanted to watch, we watched. I was flattered and touched. More importantly to me, the fact that Mr. CC went to SO much trouble to make my day special just warmed my heart all to pieces. Yeah, I know, it’s gushy and mushy and kinda yucky…but I’m the luckiest girl that I know! He’s a great guy, and I can’t say “THANK YOU” enough.

He was even sweet enough to get the key from the hotel for my scrapbook. The key was an actual key (unheard of these days with electronic locks!) and it had a cool keychain. Apparently at the front desk, you could buy a replica key chain…so he bought one and then switched the key chains so that we kept the beat-up looking one that we were given. SO sweet and thoughtful…

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

To RSVP or Not to RSVP...

We’ll take another quick break for some snapshots of Little CC’s b-day party this past weekend. How is this wedding-relevant, some of you out there might ask? Well, technically, it’s not. But in a round-about way, it IS. You see, little CC’s 7th birthday party taught me a thing or two about RSVPing for parties. And that includes weddings.

Let me back-track one quick moment. Last year, little CC’s party stunk. I did it where she wanted (Chuck E Cheese, and yes, I deserve a medal) but I didn’t let her invite all of her friends from school. I can’t remember my reasoning at the time, but I just didn’t. Instead, Mr. CC and I opted to go the safe route and just invited some of our friends that have kids. What we didn’t realize is that all of our friends with kids have boys. So, yes, the party was what she wanted and where she wanted, but there were no girls at her party. (There was actually one girl present, but as she was barely walking, little CC didn’t count her!) Needless to say, the party was a bit of a disappointment to little CC. And I vowed to do better this year.

This year, I pulled out all the stops. Found a cool place, let little CC pick the theme (Scooby-Doo), and sent out about 30 invitations to both her school classmates and her day care classmates. And then waited…

The Tuesday night before her Saturday party I was wide awake at 4am. (If you’re wondering if this is normal, YOU try to plan a wedding while working full-time and then throw into the mix a birthday party and tell me how much sleep YOU get!) So there I am, trying my darndest to get back to sleep, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s Tuesday…and not ONE SINGLE PERSON has called in for her party. Oh no. Do you mean to tell me that out of 30 people, NO ONE is coming?!?!?!? Oh, the horrors…the nightmares…I just didn’t think that I could face another bad birthday party on my shoulders.

So the next day, amid a full blown panic, I set about trying to somehow solve the problem. In comes BM Britney to the rescue. She comes up with the sweet idea to send a reminder “flyer” to little CC’s school the next day (which was the last day of school, thus making coordinating all of this a bit harder) to remind the parents and kids about the party on the weekend. Excellent idea, love you much BM Britney!

In about 10 minutes, I had designed, written and printed out a rough draft of something that would work. I sized it down so that 4 reminders printed per sheet of paper, and I took advantage of our color copies at work to run a few extras. I trimmed the papers down to size and the next day when I delivered the cupcakes to little CC’s class, we put one in each mailbox.

Being not-so-sneaky, I also tried to talk with the kids that were sitting around us while I was there and ask them if they were planning on coming to little CC’s party. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long…as I got responses anywhere from yes, to no, to “I have to go to the library that day.” I kid you not, a little girl actually told me the one about the library. So, with strict instructions to little CC to pass out the remaining reminders at day care, I left it up to the fates.

And I’ll be honest here. On Thursday night, when I got the first RSVP phone call, I did a funky-monkey happy dance. If you don’t know what that is…then I can’t help you at all. I literally did a dance of joy around the kitchen. Probably looked like a freak, but I didn’t care. A little girl WOULD be at the party on Saturday. Over the next day or so, I got 4 more such calls, and was very comfortable with 5 confirmed attendees for the party. My mom’s rule of thumb (while comforting me about all of this) was that twice as many who call will show up, so I was prepared for 10 kids all together. And we had 9. Of course, 2 of them were little brothers, but that’s ok. I’ll count them too.

Here’s some pics of the festivities…

I'm not sure about her smile here...kinda scary!

I could NOT get her to give me a "real" smile...

So what does all of this have to do with my wedding? I have learned how important it is to call and say you’ll be there and mean it. I learned this lesson so well, that I had a wedding RSVP on my kitchen table waiting for a decision from Mr. CC and I on it. That card that some bride sweated over and addressed and stamped went in the mail this morning. Yes, it was two days late. But hopefully she followed the standard rule of thumb and put the deadline for a response a week before she actually needed it.

It’s important for the person planning the even to know what to plan for. I get that now. Yes, it’s taken 32…nearly 33 years…but once the lesson’s learned, hopefully it’s here to stay. So I vow right now to not ever not RSVP again…

I’ll leave you with this cute picture of Mr. CC and little making fruit faces…just too cute to not include!
Do you appreciate it when people RSVP to you? Or are you able to stay sane and plan your shindig without relying on that little phone card/postcard response? If you are, please be ok with the fact that I hate you just a teensy bit…LOL!