33

Nate turned 33 on August 30th.  It was a Saturday, which meant that no one had to go to school or work.  In the morning we sang Happy Birthday and Nate opened his presents.  Each of the kids used their own money to buy a present:  Natalie bought Milk Duds, Kelton bought a bag of caramels, and Damon bought Junior Mints.  I got him new sunglasses, Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U, and a magnetic iPad pen (to replace the one he already had that was misplaced somewhere in our house by Arie).

My visiting teacher was nice enough to offer to come watch our kids for us so that I could take Nate golfing after lunch.  We went to a course here in town and had a lot of fun.  I hadn't been golfing in at least five years and had only been a couple of times in the five years before that.  I was worried I wouldn't really be able to do it anymore, but I surprised myself by being able to pick up about where I left off.  Not that that's saying much... but I was at least able to hit the ball and did well enough to get a bogey on a couple of holes.

That evening we went into Tucson to have dinner at Chili's.  I had a genius plan.  Instead of paying $15-$20 on kids meals that the kids never even eat, I bribed them with ice cream.  They agreed to let me make macaroni and cheese at home (which is one of the things on the menu at Chili's that at least one kids always wants to order) and then we would take them to McDonalds after we ate to get ice cream.  They were very excited about the deal.  But by the time we got to Chili's, they were all begging for food and chocolate milk.  We ended up buying two kids meals for them to share.  Then, they still wanted the ice cream we told them they could have!  No amount of explaining could get them to understand that the deal was either food from Chili's OR ice cream.  But the kids lucked out.  Because it was Nate's birthday, he got a free scoop of ice cream which he let the kids share.

I honor of turning 33, I will list three (because I can't think of 33!) random birthday facts about Nate:

1) He has always insisted on the birthday tradition where we wake the birthday person by singing "Happy Birthday" and then the birthday presents are opened in bed.  Since we've been married, this has been done for every single birthday whether it's ours or the kids.  And yes, sometimes the birthday person is actually awake, but they have to wait for the family to "wake" them.

2)  Nate never has a birthday cake.  His birthday treat of choice is a banana cream pie.

3)  Every year we celebrate by going out to eat dinner at a restaurant with the whole family.  This is per Nate's request; he wants the kids with us.