my birthday story

yes brind's girl is the same julia gulia, who i believe now is not just a friend, but nothing too serious.  (for now)

darla i swear i wrote about my fabulous birthday, but i can't find it anywhere.  so i will tell you, it was most magical.  linda came and picked up the kids and i got to chill at home for about an hour.  then cory came home and told me to put on something nice, not too nice, but he knows how i like to dress up and don't get to very often.  he would not however tell me where we were going.  we ended up the the Christmas tree festival in portland, which is like my favorite thing and it's only one weekend and it just happened to be my birthday weekend.   so we walked around looking at all the trees for as long as we wanted without chasing, carrying, or nagging any small children.  then when we were done with that he said that is where the plans ended and now we could eat where ever i wanted.  we both agreed on black angus, because we love to pig out!! and it's super yummy.  (and i feel skinny when i go there, because everyone walking out weighs about 250.)  now beyond taking me to my two favorite places cory was being his most charming self.  and you all know how wonderful that can be.  so we get done eating and we go get in the truck and look at the hotel adjacent to the restaurant and agree that it would be so nice if we could just stay in town and not have to go out to amboy to get the kids tonight.  but cory has made it very clear for over a month that a hotel was not in the budget and we would try for our anniversary or something, so i didn't even push it.  then he says lets just go see how much it would be.  i reminded him that his mom had saturday school and it was a miracle that she was watching the kids for a few hours.  he said he was going to at least ask, so he got out of the truck so i wouldn't "hear him gravel".  he jumps back in the car and says it's a go.  dave will watch the kids while she runs down to the school in the morning.  so now i expect that we will go over to the shilo inn that is right there, but cor insists that we go down to the new hilton the nicest hotel in the area.  well i wasn't going to argue.  we pulled up in front of it and cory ran in to check out the prices.  about 5 minutes later he comes out and says that the lady was really cool and could give a nice discount, but it was still a bit more than he was hoping for.  she had given him the key and said we could just check it out and see what we thought.  i of course was thinking yes, because i am a spoiled brat, but i was trying to be practical and just say we would have a look.  so we go up to the top floor and when you get out of the elevator your looking out into ester short park and their fabulous Christmas tree.  we walk down the hall and cory opens the door into a room that is lit with candles, has nora jones playing and a bottle of something chilling with two goblets.  my first thought was oh crap we are in some one else's room, then i thought wow what a selling job they're doing, but then i see one of my sweaters hanging across a chair.  holy, how on earth did he manage it.  we was only in there for 5 minutes and he didn't have anything with him.  he is good.  he had had the whole thing planned for like a month, he even had reservation at the restaurant he knew i would want to go to.  he had taken pjs and things for the kids to work so his dad could take them home with him, and he had gotten off work early and gone to the hotel and set everything he had even packed all my stuff.  the only thing he couldn't get was my running clothes so he told me to bring them with us because we would try to run or walk on the river front after we had dinner.  the room was beautiful and peaceful and perfect.  we had so much fun and he even took me running the next morning.  he was blown away that i didn't have a clue, but i really didn't have a clue.  i had even made plans to go running with brind, but he understood when i ditched him.  i can't even express how amazing it is to have someone know me and love me that much.  ok sorry for the way drawn out story, but you asked for it, well at least darla did. 

cam it was so good to hear from you and please get your wife on here i miss more than my luggage.  as for my youngest siblings they just suck. 

mindi thank you for the birthdays especially yoko ono i was really wondering about that one.  you are too funny! 

darla let us know what is going on as soon as you know isn't it like tomorrow? 

adam congrats on the new calling, that should be fun??

brooke you called, but i haven't been able to call you back but my home number is the same as it was, cor just got me a new hard drive or something.

love to all.......me  

ps they just posted the results from the run i did and i ran it in 3:12 which put me 25 out of 86 overall and 5 out of 28 women.