My 41st Birthday

It was a great weekend!
My birthday was Saturday June 13th. I had a super day, or I should say, Weekend.

Last year was my big 4-0. My wife took it upon herself to plan an extravagant party at Westhawk Lake. She invited friends to come out to camp or just to party for the day and head home. So many of my friends were there and I had an awesome time. From flying the plane in Kenora, to losing most of my frontal body hair to the Jengafire on both evenings.

This year however, I gave strict instructions. No big parties. As a matter of fact, no parties that involved people outside of my immediate family. I was intent on taking it easy this year and have a nice relaxing day with my family. No frenzied activity. No entertaining. No stress. I love to have a party. And my friends are fantastic people that I rarely get to see. But this year was going to be a quiet one. I have spoken.

As far as a gift was concerned, I asked for nothing other than a day of my family's time on my birthday and as a special gift from my wife; a day of her time so we could take a geocaching road trip together. And, she agreed. Cool. Not like she had much choice. As I said before...I had spoken.

The day began the way most household birthdays do. Breakfast in bed with all of us crowding into our bed and trying not to spill anything. Then the kids presented me with their fantastic hand made projects. The pride and appreciation I feel when I recieve the artistic results of the solitary labor of one of my children is immeasurable. As I pour over the detail of their gifts I try to imagine what they might have been thinking while drawing/painting/stapling/glueing this particular object. I imagine them sitting their desks, faces barely an inch from the paper as they fastidiously colour with crayons and markers. Their bodies shaking in time with the fervent pistoning of their little arm. These are the gifts that matter. I definitely am not looking forward to the day when they discover the convenience of exchanging money for a pre-printed Hallmark sentiment that is shared among a few dozen recipinents, who, other than the card, have absolutely nothing in common. Of course I'll appreciate them. But I'll miss the other. Alot.

So after the cards come the gifts. I truly was expecting, and hoping for nothing. But as it turned out, I got some shower products from my kids, and a surprise from my wife.

I have never owned a leather jacket. I have never found a jacket that fits and was at a price that I could justify paying. I have periodically mused aloud at how I would like to have a nice leather coat. And I have shopped in the past, but I needed the eye of my wife for final approval. I mean, lets face it, I look amazing in any coat, but she's the one that will be looking at me. I want her to swoon just right.

Well it turns out that this is the birthday I got a leather jacket. And she shopped for it on her own. And it fit me. And it was perfect. The perfect gift for a guy who wanted nothing. Get him something he didn't know he wanted. Awesome.

After that, we just hung around for a bit at the house. Later we decided to go on a picnic. So we grabbed some sandwiches at Subway and headed to Whittier Park to have a picnic and replace a geocache that I had removed while the water was high. After we did those things, we went for a 3 km walk around the Whittier and Lagimodiere Gaboury parks and walked back to the car through the streets of St Boniface. All in all, a pretty happy day.

Then we dropped off the kids at Grandma and Grampas and went to The Line Up for a yummy dinner. We had planned to go out for drinks later, but somehow that never happened. I had a great day.