Stephen is 23! Happy birthday, husband! I've had a lot of fun planning for his birthday. Yesterday, while he was in class, I put streamers on the wall, spelling out his name and age. This was a tradition in my home growing up. We would write our our name and our age in streamers on the wall and take a picture in front of it with our friends. He got home before I was done, so I made him wait out on the stairs for a few minutes while I finished. Stephen said people passed him and asked if he was locked out. He told them he was and that he was waiting for his wife. I promise I didn't keep him outside for more than five minutes. I made him close his eyes and positioned him so he would see the wall when he opened his eyes. Stephen isn't one to react much when things happen, but when he saw the wall, he said "oh wow!" and sounded genuinely surprised. That was a lot of fun for me.
Seeing his name on the wall put him in the birthday boy mood, and he asked for his presents a day early. We decided (or he convinced me) to spend the weekend celebrating his birthday, not just Saturday. So I wrapped up a few gifts I had for him. This included Rhythm Heaven Fever (a really cute wii game), Pinochle (a card game his family loves), a flashlight (because we realized we needed one), and some money for League of Legends (an online game we love playing together). We're going to the store today to get him some new church shirts too. This kid hasn't gotten himself some new white shirts since his mission, and believe me, he needs to.
This morning, we went out to Denny's for his free birthday meal. That was fun. We're going to Brick Oven tonight because we have a gift card there (thanks Tiff!). I've made him Grasshopper Pie for his substitution-cake. I'm planning on making a picnic and taking him to Provo Canyon since it's such a beautiful day, but this is a surprise to him. Shhh! We're also going to go do temple sealings today too. We've been married for four weeks as of today. Can you believe it? I've been so blessed being married to Stephen. There have been many times I've wondered how I ever made it through life without him. Seriously, he's the best thing in my life, second to the Gospel. He's thanked me a lot for making his birthday special, and I tell him "of course!" I love finding out ways I can make him happy.
In other non-birthday news, I got my first bountiful basket this morning. There were a lot of Summer-y items in it. I was surprised because I was anticipating a Fall harvest more so than melons and pineapple. But I'm excited to have so much fresh food. It's going to be a race between me and the produce to see if I can use it all before it goes bad. I want to buy a basket every other week, and looking at what I got today, that's probably reasonable. Also, does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do with ten tomatoes? I will put some on sandwiches, and I might make homemade tomato soup. Ah well. I joke with Stephen that this is like a food network reality cooking show, like Chopped or Iron Chef. I've been given the basket of ingredients, and now I just need to be creative and not get sick of tomatoes! I'm excited and up for the challenge.
Well, Stephen is inviting me to join him in Rhythm Heaven Fever, and I think I'm going to go spend some time with the birthday boy! May there be many more celebrations in our future!
It's super easy to make homemade marinara with your tomatoes.. you can stew it for a few hours w/ the onions and garlic if you like a darker flavor (like I do) or you can make it in 20 minutes if you like a light, summery flavor (like Michael does). And it probably freezes well if you have glass jars, so you won't have to get sick of it.
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