Adrian’s Birthday Weekend

Last Thursday was Adrian’s birthday. Originally we were going to go out of town for a few days, but we weren’t sure what would be happening that week with me being sick and everything, so on Tuesday we finally scratched our out of town plans… which gave me less than 48 hours to plan something else for his birthday. Since it was his 30th, I felt it was important to do something extra fun. Also, he took off work on Thursday and Friday so any surprises had to be completely planned and ready before the end of work on Wednesday, so really I had about 24 hours to get it all done. I’ll spare all of you the details, but I did a lot of shopping, day-of my cousin picked up the balloons I’d preordered, my sister decorated with crepe paper and made cupcakes with my mom, my aunt made a great seven layer bean-style dip, and Scott (with more helpers) made almost all of the food. So by Thursday night, we had a surprise (at least, a partial surprise… I’m not a good liar and Adrian likes to weasel information out of me) party at my parents’ house, with carne asada on the BBQ, a bounce house, a water balloon toss and throw, a pinata, and then eventual relaxing in the pool and spa.

Back up a little to the morning of his birthday… we both woke up feeling sicker than the day before, which wasn’t exactly what we wanted. I made his favorite blueberry muffins and eventually we gathered up the energy to shower and leave, at which time we went to the pharmacy to drop of a prescription and buy more cold and congestion medicine. That’s how everyone wants to spend a birthday, right? We decided to rush to the theater to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which we both enjoyed, and then it was time to quickly go home and get to my parents’ house.

I was going to take pictures of us at the theater, but I forgot the camera, so sadly that part of the day isn’t documented. We were pretty sicky anyway. So here are pictures from the party instead.

Here’s Adrian in the bounce house.

Tiersha, Melissa, Adrian, and Scott getting food and cooking.

Adrian having a go at the pinata.

Navid finished off the pinata, after Christina, Melissa, Phuong, Panteha, Ryan, and Josh all had turns.

Adrian blew out all 30 candles in one shot. We were very impressed.

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Sarah got a little frosting in the face, courtesy of Adrian. Trevor looks a little confused.

Friday we picked up my sister and went down to Carlsbad to go to the outlet mall, which is one of Adrian’s favorite places. First we stopped and bought Rainbow Sandals for me and Sarah. It’s my first pair ever, which is kind of funny since I grew up here, and I’m pretty excited. They started hurting my feet at the outlet mall, but now that they’re more broken in they’re so comfy. Anyhow, we didn’t find any amazing deals, but Sarah had fun going to the Coach and Juicy stores, and Adrian and I bought a new Le Creuset pot that fit the exact size and style description of what we’d been wishing for but didn’t even know they made. We also stopped at Ruby’s to eat, since we were all getting a little hungry, but being there made Adrian realize that what he really wanted was clucks and fries at Red Robin, so we made plans to go there for dinner and only got a snack at Ruby’s.

So after that we drove home, rested for about an hour, and then drove north to Irvine Spectrum for Red Robin. After that we thought about seeing Transformers, but the 10:15 show was sold out and we didn’t want to wait around for the next show at 10:50. And I wasn’t feeling all that well. So we went to my parents’ to pick up pjs for Sarah, who wanted to sleep over, and then went home and played on the Wii for only a little while until we all decided we were way too sleepy.

This is a hard-to-recognize picture of the servers singing for Adrian at Red Robin. Sarah was the brave one who said it was his birthday.

Saturday we all slept in until 11 (again…we’re such bums!). Adrian then went to an acupuncture appointment, which was very interesting since it was his first one, and then we went to the tidepools at Laguna Beach. Sarah and Adrian are much more adventurous at the beach than I am, and were having fun climbing the rocks and hoping to get splashed. I held back and only touched the little creatures with a lot of coaxing.

Sarah and Adrian exploring the tide pools (with Sarah hoping for a good splash).
One of the “sticky things” that would sort of grab at your fingers when you’d touch it. Luckily for my sake it also let go easily.

Even for a girl like me, who doesn’t like the ocean much, it was really pretty.

Then we went back to my parents’ house to drop of Sarah, and since it was late afternoon and we hadn’t showered we thought we’d jump in the pool. Luckily I had some swimsuits in my car, and my boardshorts fit Adrian. See, it’s really a useful thing to have not unpacked all that stuff I’m supposed to be moving to our house! We went in the pool for a little bit and I made quesadillas on the grill since we were all pretty hungry.

Then we went home and got ready really really fast for the friend birthday dinner. We went to Lucille’s BBQ, a restaurant we’d heard a lot of good things about but hadn’t yet gone to. We had to wait a while, which stunk, but the food was great and the portions were huge. Also, they had a blues band, which led me to resolve to only eat at restaurants which have live blues bands. I meant to take a picture of them, but by the time we left they had wrapped up.

Us at Lucille’s.

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A selection of the food…it was all really big and delicious.

Reviewing the pictures, it looks like a pretty decent birthday. Adrian will have to start thinking about my 25th, which isn’t TOO far away…