Birthday Weekend

My birthday was Thursday.

It was a wonderful day.  The best part about it?  It was pretty much my typical Thursday.

I did get to sleep in, but that was due to an alarm clock malfunction.  We ALL got to sleep in, and two of the boys missed the bus.  A minor inconvenience, but it was still nice not to wake up in the dark.

I took the morning class at 10, which is always especially good.  Got an excellent workout, learned some new material, felt 25 and invincible. 

God, I love my martial arts classes.

I got to pick the location for lunch, and chose Thai Palace where I enjoyed a fabulous buffet with Savageman, The Master and his wife, and a fellow student.  We ate and talked for hours, which was perfectly delightful.

After lunch, I did some shopping with my mom for some new Vibrams - equally delightful.  Then I headed home to get Middle and the two Teen Ninja Girls for the 4:00 class.  One of the girls had a cake for me, and the other presented me with a homemade card and a gift.

Love my adopted girls.

The 4:00 was also quite excellent, as was the 5:00 cardio / kickboxing.  I shared the cake with the teens in the back room, then packed up for my childbirth class.

It was the last class of the 12 week series, and everyone brought food, so I had another party.  Former students popped in with their baby and told their birth story, raved about the class and how well prepared they were for their natural birth and first weeks with their baby.  We talked and laughed and I felt all warm and squooshy inside knowing I make such a difference to these folks in their transition into parenthood.

At home, Savageman was his usual attentive self.  He had a sweet card and flowers and chocolate for me. We cuddled and watched The Walking Dead together.  (The Zombie Apocolypse is so romantic.)  A perfect ending to a perfect day.

But my birthday weekend had just begun!

Friday was orginally going to feature a hike to Pole Steeple, but I was called in to do a neuropsych evaluation, so I gladly took the opportunity to work.  The kids filmed a zombie movie after school. They were very convincing. We had sparring in the evening.  The guru came home from grad school and presented me with a freaky-big-face-cat-shirt.  I had several excellent sparring matches, got some extra help with my new forms, and we had a very fun time at the pizza place as always.

Saturday morning featured another demo at another fall festival. 

That evening was a Halloween party, followed by the 80s-themed birthday bash thrown by the karate women.  I wore the same outfit to both - kind of a green plaid skirt and white blouse (since I spent about half of the 80s in Catholic School) with a side ponytail, lots of blue eyeshadow, big earrings, and loads of bracelets up my arms. 







One of the Adopted Daughters did my hair, makeup, and accessories.  Not bad, considering she was born in 1996.










We ate, drank, and watched Pretty in Pink.  I felt blessed to have such very sweet girlfriends who enjoy kicking butt and doing wacky fun things like this.








The dojang women =>
We may look silly, but we're actually quite deadly.

Don't mess with us. :-)

Sunday started with church, then a rare outdoor (pre-hurricane Sandy) open practice at the park with Middle, the guru, and Teen Ninja Girl, followed by a relaxing lunch with them.  Always a good time when we're together.

The weekend wrapped up with the family party at my parents' where we had a delicious dinner, cake and presents.

All in all, it was a wonderful birthday weekend.  I got to spend it with all of my favorite people, and they really went out of their way to make me feel special. 

Feeling very blessed and grateful tonight.

:-)