October 1

Yesterday, October 1, was Damien's 25th birthday! He had a very enjoyable birthday, but the best part was the surprise I pulled on him.

Weeks before his birthday, Rita emailed me to get some gift ideas for Damien because he was refusing to send her any. He said he didn't need any birthday gifts because they are flying us out to visit for Thanksgiving. So I sent her a few a list of things he wanted. We continued our secret emails back and forth. She order a few gifts and had them sent to the house. As most of you know, we live above our landlords' garage and so we use the same address as them. This worked out wonderfully because I had them put all packages that came to the house in a closet inside their back door. That way Damien had no idea that I was having all of the gifts held back!

One day Damien came to get me from school to go to yoga and informed me that Rita had given him Mexican Train for his birthday. One of the packages slipped through and was set out on the back bench when Damien got home from school. And of course he opened it minutes after getting home. He asked me how his mom knew that he wanted Mexican Train. I had to lie and pretend like I didn't know anything about it.

All of the rest of the packages were held though and so the few days before his birthday I went and got the gifts from the closet and hid them in our apartment. The morning of his birthday he woke up and went and got in the shower. He thought I was still asleep, but I jumped out of bed and took all of the boxes out of their hiding places and had them all set up on the table. When he came out of the bathroom he was so surprised to see all of these gifts waiting for him. He had a huge smile on his face! The days before his birthday he was sad nothing came in the mail for him because he thought everyone had forgotten his birthday. Little did he know I was being sneaky and hiding them so he couldn't open them before his birthday!

Damien and I will continue his birthday celebration with sushi tonight for dinner (while I enjoy some teriyaki chicken or something a little more normal) and next weekend we are going rock climbing at the Quarry.