Lorein's 29th birthday party

Last week was Lorein's 29th birthday.  For the first time in awhile, I knew exactly what to get her.  Costco has had mountain bikes for sale for a couple months.  Every time we would go (and we go to Costco A LOT!), Lorein would talk about how much she wanted a bike.  Then, the Sunday before her birthday, we borrowed our neighbors' bikes and went on a short ride around post.  Lorein kept talking about how great it was and how she couldn't wait to get her own bike.  Completely clued in, I left for lunch a little early on Monday, drove to Costco, and bought her a bike.  I left it in the bed of the truck and locked the tailgate and bed cover so she couldn't happen upon it without first having to ask me for the key.  I was quite proud of myself and was excited to see how excited she would be when I pulled it out.

At dinner Tuesday night, Lorein told me she wanted a really good portable speaker for her birthday.  We went to the PX to check it out.  She was really into the Bose bluetooth speaker and I noticed it was exactly the same price as the Costco mountain bike.  Seeing her excitement about the speaker, I was forced to divulge I had already gotten her a gift.  She had to choose, and she went for music.  I returned the bike.  On the bright side, I can at least use the speaker; I never would've ridden a girl bike

Although I wasn't able to get Lorein her wished-for gift on the first try, I do want it known that I was totally on the ball this birthday.  I even had a party planned.  Because I'm so thoughtful and caring, I wanted to make sure she didn't have to invest any work in the planning or performance of the party.  On the other hand, because I'm not what you would call an "expert" in the field of party throwing, I wanted to keep everything relatively easy and casual.  So, I ordered a cake (from Costco of course!) and invited the neighbors over for a small get-together.

When one of our neighbors, who I will call "Megan", read the invitation (yes, I even had invitations!), she immediately asked why there wasn't going to be any dinner.  I was engaged in some small repartee with her when Lorein appeared and completely took Megan's side.  My well-meaning and good-hearted intentions soon withered under their combined attacks.  I agreed to grill some hot dogs to appease the masses, but they did not find this to be sufficient.  We ended up with like 20 people going to the Purple Garlic restaurant.  The food was really good, but the manager got mad at us for not letting him know we would be having such a large party.  I would like to point out that, if everyone had simply followed my original plan, we would not have been yelled at by anybody.  After dinner, we went back, had cake, ice cream and milk, and talked the night away while listening to music.  It was simple and incredibly fun.  It's almost as if that portion of the festivities could've stood alone as a more-than-adequate birthday party.

The next day, Lorein asked me not to do anything for her next birthday.  Of course, her next birthday will be her 30th, so that's not going to happen.