Boy do we have alot to catch up on!! My 40th birthday has come and gone and I have to say I am like fine wine...I get better with age! hahaha....

My actual birthday was spent ferrying kids from school and back and around and over and up and down...Mark was on duty so dinner was simple and uneventful....and I quietly turned 40 without much hoopla...but little did I know that was about to change!

Saturday the 23rd of September was Ben's actual birthday, but we were having his party the following day (Sunday afternoon), so that found us having to run errands on Saturday. Mark had been on duty on Friday and came home bright and early Saturday morning and made me get out of bed and rush around to get ready. He was being rather persistant and really started to bug me! We had four stops to make, and Mark was rushing me at each stop...and kept looking at his watch and telling me to 'come on..lets get going!'. At one point, I looked at him and said "I don't know what crawled up your butt and died but you are starting to really bug me!"...hehehe...(at this point, I was still unaware that he had a master plan in the works). We arrived home with all our errands run (pick up Bens birthday cake, Costco, a new winter coat for Paige, crickets for the lizard) and Mark was still rushing me! UGH! I walked into a house full of balloons and people and food! What a surprise!! No wonder Mark was rushing me! I had a party to get to! It was such fun. Our very dear, wonderful, glorious friends from Whidbey Island came up for the weekend (they just LOVE me! )....along with all my other wonderful friends (I have surrounded myself with a group of true blue, tried and true people!)....Mark had chicken and Brats for the grill (Brats are a kind of sausage, not bad kids for all you Non-Wisconsinites!)....a pasta salad had been donated to the cause and Lumpia (read a previous post to find out what those are!) was cooked and ready to eat..I was truly spoiled...I received many wonderful gifts and cards and so a big huge THANK YOU to everyone who remembered me as I turned 40!! You are all awesome and all are greatly loved....I don't know what I would do without any one of you....you are each unique and bring something wonderful into my life....True friends are hard to find but I have been blessed to find a whole group! YAY for me!!

Hugs and love
Mark,Jaye and Gang