My dog says "woof woof" to you...happy b-day

(The title of this post is derived from a free personalized birthday song that can be downloaded at 1happybirthday.com. It is a crazy song that any birthday boy or girl would be thrilled to hear on their b-day.)

So I thought it was about time to post about our birthdays. J and I have back-to-back birthdays. His is the 5th of June and mine is the 6th. We always celebrate both our birthdays on both of those days, though, so we each get a bonus birthday! This year we didn't really do much for J's birthday. I bought him some balloons (a periwinkle one, a pirate one, and a regular Happy Birthday one) and some new underwear. Oh, and I made him waffles, played his personalized Happy Birthday tape (thanks, Lisa! I play it every year!), and made him a Boston Cream Pie (from a box mix. It was more like Boston Cream Cobbler though since the cake wouldn't come out of the pan.). That was about it. However, on my birthday (or day 2 of his birthday) he went shooting at a gun range with our neighbor, Patrick. It was a sort of training range with good people/bad people targets and simulated real-life scenarios (like mall shootings). Anyway, he loved it and would be happy to tell you all about it if you ask him. I considered it part of his birthday.

My birthday happened to land on free fishing day, so I wanted to go fishing. We got in the car to head to my parents' to borrow fishing gear when J tied my jacket around my head for a blindfold. He told me not to peek and started driving. It felt like we drove forever. Eventually we parked and I got out, still blindfolded, and started walking with J leading me. We got a cart and then went into an elevator. While in there I listened to a lady talk to J about setting up Addie with her little boy and then she asked, "Are you having fun over there?"and I realized she was talking to me. Jason said, "Oh, its her birthday and I'm surprising her. Don't tell her where she is, she doesn't know." The lady laughed and said, "Oh I get it!" and then we got out of the elevator. We walked in circles. J handed me a sample of something, but it smelled weird so I gave it back. Then, after stopping somewhere, he took off my blindfold. The entire time I was blindfolded I was tring to guess where I was but I didn't guess Walmart, which is too bad because I would have been right. I was standing in front of a fishing gear display. Bait, poles, hooks, line, everything fishy. "Happy Birthday! You get to pick out a pole!" So, for my 25th birthday (yes, I have been alive for a quarter of a century) I got my very first fishing pole. I was quite excited! Add to that the fact that I get to use it immediately and without a license requirement and you get: one awesome birthday! I picked a nice pole with smooth reeling action and a bottle of powerbait that looks like Lisa Frank designed it. It was a rainbow of colors speckled with sparkles and licorice scented. We were out to catch a ten-year-old girl fish.

Oh, and then Jason wanted to buy some bullets at the back counter and the cashier wanted to see my I.D. too (even though I wasn't buying them). However, my I.D. was in the car (J had told me just to leave my bag) so I said I'd just take Addie to the car and let J buy them by himself. As I was headed to the front of the store a lady saw me and called out from across an aisle, "Did you figure out where you are yet?" I was way confused because I had never seen her before and I thought "Do I look like I'm wandering around like an idiot?" So I just gave a her a puzzled smile and kept walking. A few minutes later I realized that she must have been the lady in the elevator. Next I realized that I had no idea where we parked since I was blindfolded when it happened. I decided to go back and wait for Jason. Well, I couldn't find him so I decided to call him...except that my phone was in my bag, too. So, there I was, wandering around lost in Walmart on my birthday. I thought about going to the front desk and having them page Jason, but eventually he found me and I got to leave Walmart. Then we convinced my parents to come fishing with us and we went to a park pond to try our luck.

Me and my new pole.

Addie wished she was a fish so she could try the bait.

My dad getting out a good cast. He also helped the boy next to us pull in a large bass with his tiny kid pole. I guess those things aren't just for pretending to fish.

Jason, Addie and my mom.

This is only thing we caught: a crawdad. Yep, he took the bait and we reeled him in. He was missing some legs and looked like he'd had a rough life. If he would have been born a human, he would have grown up to be an outlaw, I could tell. I held him, but not long enough for a picture. Anyway, it was a fun birthday even if it didn't end with a trout dinner. Oh, speaking of dinner, we did go to Applebees after fishing. Our waiter asked if I wanted to be sung to or if I just wanted the cake. J said, "Just the cake," but I said I wanted to be sung to. Hey, you only get the option of having Happy Birthday sung to you by servers in a restaurant once a year. So, I got sung to and I loved it. Also, we got terrible stomachaches later that night and thought our insides were going to become our outsides. Permanently. Fortunately Maalox has been invented and we are the proud owners of a bottle. Happy Birthday to us.

And Addie has two teeth now, going on three pretty soon. She has her two rat teeth (the front bottom ones) and she's getting an upper canine tooth. She bites me with them. If she understood English I would ask her why she only bites me and no one else. I can only guess, but I think her answer would have something to do with picking on someone your own size.

Oh, and here's a few tidbits of info:

• Andre Kirilenko was on our flight home from Hawaii, I forgot to mention that in the last post. He was with some friends and perhaps a brother. It may interest you to know that he bought them all breakfast at McDonald's in the airport before the flight.

• Today we went to a Russian place for lunch with Brian and Kristy Davenport. It was a fun surprise to have them in town and go out for lunch!

• June 19th is World Sauntering Day. If you wake up that day and wonder why the whole world is sauntering about, that's why. Perhaps you should consider doing a little sauntering yourself on that day.