I recently celebrated my 34th birthday and I had a really good time! I spent the day with some of closest friends and family. I realized a lot of things that I have to be grateful for and wanted to take time to acknowledge them. 

But before I recount the events of the day let me talk about a kindness that was extended to me, days before my birthday. Patrick Rhone sent me a signed copy of his book “Enough” and even though I opened the package I decided not to start reading it until my birthday.  Thinking about what the book might contain primed me for thinking about my birthday as an exercise in “enough”. I decided just be in the moment and have a good time.  Having read some of the book now I plan on paying it forward and gifting copies for certain family members who I think would appreciate the gems of wisdom the Mr. Rhone has shared with us.  The essay are thought provoking and have been a good source of introspection for me.

My wife is a wonderful and amazing person, and my life is better with her in it. We both took the day off to spend time together which was great because of the amount of hours she’s been working lately. We started the morning by just laying in bed and snuggling for an hour or so then we got up and made some breakfast.  Once we were presentable to the outside world we made our way to the Reston Zoo which is a place I visited when I was very little.  Melissa is a lover of animals and she’d never been, so I thought it would be fun to take her. We fed lots of the animals including pigs, goats, sheep, a buffalo, a Watusi, a camel, ducks, and an emu.  The coolest experience by far was in the budgie cage. The woman at the admissions desk warned us that the budgies were mostly in hiding because of how cold it was outside so we didn’t have high hopes about getting to feed them. When we entered the giant aviary the birds were hiding inside their bird house in the back because that’s where the heaters are. I held out my hand to let them come feed and just as I was about to give up, a little white and blue budgie landed on my hand and started eating off the treat stick I had. It was a great way to end the visit so we headed out.

Our next stop was to the new fitness studio Melissa works for, Koko FitClub. We did one session of cardio, then our strength training, and finished it with another session of cardio. That was refreshing, and needed to counter the gluttony that would happen later in the evening.

We stopped at subway for some quick sandwiches then back home to change and freshen up. We took our puppies with us to pick up the cupcakes that would take the place of my birthday cake. Everyone got to pick their own cupcakes so everyone was happy . 

We made our way over to my folks house and mom had already started getting dinner ready. A week or so prior to the big day my wife ordered deep dish pizzas to be shipped from Giordano’s in Chicago. We got one cheese, one pepperoni, and one sausage and they were amazing!

The evening was spent with family, hanging out and talking about games, science, and how nice it was to be together. Having spent the previous two birthdays in Texas away from my biological family I realized that night that though I am not a Texan, a lot of people I care about are and they were missed.  Thanks to the internet they were able to wish me a happy birthday on Facebook and I felt the love . Being with family is important to me and it was nice to spend the evening with them.

Thanks to Patrick Rhone for the book that’s sure to keep me thinking about what is enough to keeps me happy over the next year. Thanks to my wife for orchestrating an amazing birthday and thanks to her, my parents, and my aunt for purchasing the iPad I used to write this blog post. I’m starting a new stage in my life and I’m super excited!