It's Always An Adventure

As I sit here and do a little bit of reflecting on this Sunday afternoon, I am feeling very blessed and lucky. Ron is traveling, the girls are snuggled on the couch watching a movie, the dogs are stretched out snoring and I am feeling at peace. There is nothing like a birthday to make you feel all warm and fuzzy and well, generally loved. Thanks to Facebook, the messages start pouring in and even if you wanted to forget that you were turning a year older, social media won’t let anyone forget 😉 So, on Friday I embraced another year in my life and celebrated in a wonderful way. It was a little tamer than my wild girls weekend in NYC last year but it was equally as special.

I started off the day by heading to R’s Kindergarten class for a poetry celebration. It is amazing to see how far the students have come in a year and how grown up they seem now. Each student read a poem that they had written, out loud to the parents. I am telling you there was not a dry eye among the parents. It was precious. R’s poem went something like this:

Dopey

Dopey went

SPLASH

in the pool, made a hole in the water.

R and a couple of her friends

It was the perfect start to the day. After the poetry reading I headed over to Starbucks and enjoyed a birthday chai while hanging out and reading my book. Lovely. I then headed to the gym and met Cass who introduced me to a class called Impact! Yes, it was as brutal as it sounds. Basically non stop punching and kicking a heavy bag with some push ups thrown in for some extra fun. It literally kicked my butt, but in a good way. At least that is what I am telling myself =) After the class we had a birthday smoothie and then I headed back over to the school to help unload supplies for the street fair and spend a little time reading with my little reading dude (one of my favorite things to do!).

After school the girls and I headed home to freshen up so that we could go and meet Ron at his office and head out for a family dinner in Little Italy. The girls INSISTED that we take a cab, since I deserved to be treated “fancy” on my birthday and should not have to get into a dirty subway car. Too cute! Little did they know that getting a cab on a Friday at 5:00 was extremely hard to do and no cabby liked to head into midtown at that time of day. But, luck, or birthday karma was on our side and we found a cab that half heartedly took us to 42nd street. We met up with Ron and headed into Little Italy to one of our favorite nostalgic NYC spots (Ron and I went there on one of our first trips to NYC), Il Cortile. The food was incredible, the service exceptional and the company, irreplaceable 😉

My lovely dining companion...

And the other two 😉

It was a fabulous evening and after dinner we strolled through Chinatown as the girls devoured some fresh gelato from Mulberry Street. On the cab ride home both girls promptly fell asleep in the back while Ron and I took in the sunset along the Hudson River and the NYC skyline. It was magical.

All partied out!

Too much gelato??!!

We made a quick stop at Magnolia Cupcake for my birthday treat, you know I LOVE my cupcakes!! When we arrived home there were some long distance birthday messages that added to the perfection of the day. That night as I snuggled under the covers with my noise cancelling headphones (Thanks Ron!!) I said a little prayer of thanks for all of my blessings, I am truly, one lucky lady.

The whole crazy family!!

P.S. Everyone is NYC should have noise cancelling headphones!!

P.P.S. Next year is the big 4-0, I am already starting to plan 😉