Joe's Birthday Celebration
On Saturday May 3rd, Joe and I celebrated his birthday with a day full of surprises. He hasn't written about it, so I'm going to go ahead so we'll remember it in a few years. If you don't really care / have time / have already heard the story, you should at least read the last paragraph with the picture - it's fun.
I wrapped many hints for Joe to open throughout the day to guess where the next place we were going was - we got in the car around 8am with a backseat full of boxes for him to open. He guessed every place before he got there by asking a bunch of questions and guessing. The first clue was easy - a picture of a chicken biscuit. We got a quick breakfast at the new Chick-fil-A in town. Next he opened a pinata (it was less than a foot across and said Happy Birthday on it... a dollar store special) full of yummy candy and I started driving. He knew we'd be doing a bunch of driving, but not where we'd go. After an hour or so the next clue was a tortilla warmer (believe it or not, he's wanted one for a while... since our last one melted... another story). Then as we were getting in town, the final clue was a picture of people celebrating Cinco de Mayo. We went to a Cinco de Mayo festival and State Menudo Competition in San Marcos. Though we didn't brave the menudo (I didn't know until we were there what it was made of), we had some yummy fajita tacos. We also enjoyed traditional Mexican dances put on by local elementary through high school students in a folklorica club. The little girls were beautiful with big dresses and ribbons in their hair - and you could tell they knew it and were savoring it.
We got back on the road and Joe opened the next hint - a beer mug and piece of sheet music of German songs. It was only about a 20 minute drive, so he got to open the final hint for that leg pretty soon, which was a picture of German food. We went to the Wein & Saengerfest (German for Wine and Song - fest) in New Braunfels. They had a one of those walls were you put on a Velcro suit and jump up to stick on it. After my pleading, Joe tried it. It was full of air - like the moon bounces you jump on as a kid (or older) - so he didn't get enough bounce to get himself up on the wall. He was trying to stick upside down, but after three tries kept falling off and got a nasty cut on his neck from the suit. After that, he couldn't convince me to try, but I admired his battle wound. We decided against the actual wine tasting (it was $15 a person and neither of us has very discerning taste), but Joe did get a German beer (light in color). He liked it. There was an independent artist singing country music - he wasn't bad, but also not great, though he was really trying to connect with the crowd... too bad most of us had some sort of German meat-bread combination in our mouths. It was also funny because we were expecting German music. After trying some German food for lunch (I had grilled pork chops - how can something grilled be so greasy? German cooks are truly inspirational. Joe had some sort of sausage, both served with bread all on a stick. Can parenthetical statements have multiple sentences in them? They can on my blog!) and some chocolates and ice cream, we headed on to the next stop.
Joe opened the next clue - it was an Innova Star Starfire Disc. Joe had wanted this disc for a while, and had some sneaky collaborators to get it here from Dallas (thanks mom and Christy!). This one was easy to guess - we were going to play disc golf! A second clue was a cartoon of a girl who looks like me playing frisbee. What Joe didn't know is that we were headed toward a huge course in Live Oak (near San Antonio) - 30 holes!!! We ended up needing a break (both of us) about halfway through, so we had a little Sonic drink break and then finished the course. Several of the first holes had both the tee and the basket right along the water - we both lost a disc (though we half-expected it and were throwing bad ones). Overall, we had fun but were sick of disc golf (I know, I didn't know Joe could get to that point).
On the trip home we stopped in New Braunfels at Ryan's Steakhouse to eat dinner. It's like a Golden Coral with plastic surgery and on steroids (and without the old people). It is an all-you-care-to-eat buffet, and they will cook steaks to order right in front of you. I'm starting to drool just thinking of it.
I had one last surprise (no clues for this one) when we came home - there were lit candles, wine and cream puffs (Joe's favorite that he rarely gets... and only the candles were lit) waiting for us when we walked in. Thanks Lauren, Jennifer and Jonathan for putting them out! We got home earlier than I expected, and they must have been driving away from the house when we were driving up, but it worked out.
I leave you with the only pictorial memory we'll have of the day, actually taken two days later. While Joe burns easily and reapplied sunscreen throughout our day in the outdoors, I didn't put a drop on (okay, the facial moisturizer that I put on every day does have SPF 15, but that's only on my face). What I didn't think about is that I am VERY white where the sun doesn't shine (not meant in a vulgar way), and my shirt, although very cute, had a wider neck than I usually wear. The result was my best Neapolitan ice cream look EVER (see the chocolate, strawberry and vanilla layers... why do they always skimp on the strawberry?):
Edit from almost a month later: yes, I have a horrible semi-circle tan line now.
I wrapped many hints for Joe to open throughout the day to guess where the next place we were going was - we got in the car around 8am with a backseat full of boxes for him to open. He guessed every place before he got there by asking a bunch of questions and guessing. The first clue was easy - a picture of a chicken biscuit. We got a quick breakfast at the new Chick-fil-A in town. Next he opened a pinata (it was less than a foot across and said Happy Birthday on it... a dollar store special) full of yummy candy and I started driving. He knew we'd be doing a bunch of driving, but not where we'd go. After an hour or so the next clue was a tortilla warmer (believe it or not, he's wanted one for a while... since our last one melted... another story). Then as we were getting in town, the final clue was a picture of people celebrating Cinco de Mayo. We went to a Cinco de Mayo festival and State Menudo Competition in San Marcos. Though we didn't brave the menudo (I didn't know until we were there what it was made of), we had some yummy fajita tacos. We also enjoyed traditional Mexican dances put on by local elementary through high school students in a folklorica club. The little girls were beautiful with big dresses and ribbons in their hair - and you could tell they knew it and were savoring it.
We got back on the road and Joe opened the next hint - a beer mug and piece of sheet music of German songs. It was only about a 20 minute drive, so he got to open the final hint for that leg pretty soon, which was a picture of German food. We went to the Wein & Saengerfest (German for Wine and Song - fest) in New Braunfels. They had a one of those walls were you put on a Velcro suit and jump up to stick on it. After my pleading, Joe tried it. It was full of air - like the moon bounces you jump on as a kid (or older) - so he didn't get enough bounce to get himself up on the wall. He was trying to stick upside down, but after three tries kept falling off and got a nasty cut on his neck from the suit. After that, he couldn't convince me to try, but I admired his battle wound. We decided against the actual wine tasting (it was $15 a person and neither of us has very discerning taste), but Joe did get a German beer (light in color). He liked it. There was an independent artist singing country music - he wasn't bad, but also not great, though he was really trying to connect with the crowd... too bad most of us had some sort of German meat-bread combination in our mouths. It was also funny because we were expecting German music. After trying some German food for lunch (I had grilled pork chops - how can something grilled be so greasy? German cooks are truly inspirational. Joe had some sort of sausage, both served with bread all on a stick. Can parenthetical statements have multiple sentences in them? They can on my blog!) and some chocolates and ice cream, we headed on to the next stop.
Joe opened the next clue - it was an Innova Star Starfire Disc. Joe had wanted this disc for a while, and had some sneaky collaborators to get it here from Dallas (thanks mom and Christy!). This one was easy to guess - we were going to play disc golf! A second clue was a cartoon of a girl who looks like me playing frisbee. What Joe didn't know is that we were headed toward a huge course in Live Oak (near San Antonio) - 30 holes!!! We ended up needing a break (both of us) about halfway through, so we had a little Sonic drink break and then finished the course. Several of the first holes had both the tee and the basket right along the water - we both lost a disc (though we half-expected it and were throwing bad ones). Overall, we had fun but were sick of disc golf (I know, I didn't know Joe could get to that point).
On the trip home we stopped in New Braunfels at Ryan's Steakhouse to eat dinner. It's like a Golden Coral with plastic surgery and on steroids (and without the old people). It is an all-you-care-to-eat buffet, and they will cook steaks to order right in front of you. I'm starting to drool just thinking of it.
I had one last surprise (no clues for this one) when we came home - there were lit candles, wine and cream puffs (Joe's favorite that he rarely gets... and only the candles were lit) waiting for us when we walked in. Thanks Lauren, Jennifer and Jonathan for putting them out! We got home earlier than I expected, and they must have been driving away from the house when we were driving up, but it worked out.
I leave you with the only pictorial memory we'll have of the day, actually taken two days later. While Joe burns easily and reapplied sunscreen throughout our day in the outdoors, I didn't put a drop on (okay, the facial moisturizer that I put on every day does have SPF 15, but that's only on my face). What I didn't think about is that I am VERY white where the sun doesn't shine (not meant in a vulgar way), and my shirt, although very cute, had a wider neck than I usually wear. The result was my best Neapolitan ice cream look EVER (see the chocolate, strawberry and vanilla layers... why do they always skimp on the strawberry?):
Edit from almost a month later: yes, I have a horrible semi-circle tan line now.Labels: vacation, What's Happened
posted by kathryn at 6:36 AM
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