27…

My Roommate pointed this passage out to me in about January.  It is from Jane Austen’s Sense & Sensibility (my favorite Jane Austen!)

“'A woman of seven-and-twenty," said Marianne, after pausing a moment, "can never hope to feel or inspire affection again, and if her home be uncomfortable, or her fortune small, I can suppose that she might bring herself to submit to the offices of a nurse, for the sake of the provision and security of a wife.’”

We both had a good chuckle over that as sometimes it seems that, even now, people view my life that way.  But I can tell you that each year is more rewarding than the last. 

This year my friends threw me the wonderful surprise party.  Yes, you can believe your eyes, that is the Costco food court!

LauriAnn told me that she had forgotten to ask someone to get the cake and then figured I might as well pick out my own.  So we waltzed right into Costco and my oblivion was definitely on surprise’s side. 

After we picked out the cake, we went to check out (yes, right in front of food court.  Did I notice the balloons? Not a chance!) At the checkout stand LauriAnn said that she needed to talk to Cindy.  Well, Cindy came right over and paid for our cake.  My thought was, “These Costco people really are amazing!  They even buy their members birthday cakes!”  Little did I know!

And then we were off.  LauriAnn literally had to shove me in the food court as I would have walked right by.  Yes, I missed the balloons, the long table of all my friends and the party hats! 

This is Cindy. : ) She was so cute.  She just kept saying, “We’re gonna get this in the newsletter!”  I hope, for her, we made it!

LauriAnn has been such a good friend.  Her birthday was just the week before and all I did was get everyone together for dinner.  She outshined me, but it rocked my world! 

In this picture we were supposed to look awkward! Nailed it!

And then there was this. So Justin told me he had some stuff to do so he couldn’t come to the afore mentioned dinner the night before my birthday. His work, I later found out, was setting up this -

So the day of my birthday Justin came over and made me lunch.  Then we hopped in the car because “we” had an appointment we had to make.  Well, we pulled into this kinda shady strip mall and Justin turns to me and simply says, “Get out.” Uh… What?  He seems extra patient and says it again.  When I still hesitate he finally says, “Alycen, you’re gonna be late for you massage.”  Oh that boy. :) So I walk into this spa and there the nicest lady is waiting for me.  She then tells me that Justin came in earlier and organized the whole thing.  I was getting the whole works, which included: full body massage, hot stone therapy massage, facial, paraffin wax on both feet and hands!  Needless to say, it was A-MAZ-ING! It took over 2 1/2 hours! By the time I was done, it was getting pretty dark, but there was my chariot, just waiting for me.  So we drove up to his house, but to my surprise we didn’t stop there.  By nature of what Justin does, he has access to a lot of private land, so after going through a couple of gated communities and winding down an ever narrowing road, we eventually saw lights glowing in the distance.  At this point I asked, “Well, how do those people get to their house?” Justin just smiled and as we got closer I realized it was a pavilion with all these tea lights and a fire blazing in the middle!  Holy Crap!  Who is this guy, right?

He had cleverly stalked my pintrest and found that I had a recipe for chicken cordon bleu.  So he found what he thought was a better recipe and made the whole works!  Then we just watched the fire go out, well and smooched a great deal too!  Now, I’ve dated a few guys in my day.  And some of them were, what I thought, quite romantic, but I’ll tell ya what, nobody holds a candle to non-member boy.  They actually have to put in effort. 

Thanks Justin and LauriAnn for really making me feel special!