This is 2022, so a couple years late for my true "40th." Sadly, I had spent my 40th alone with James and Cosette, we had arrived in Slovenia just two days before, having flown from Spain. Em, C, and Ben were in route, driving our Honda from Madrid to Ljubljana. They didn't make it in time. So I guess Ben always felt bad about this.
This party was a surprise, because one, this was Ben's brainchild, and I just couldn't envision him planning, organizing, and executing such a party. Sorry, Ben, just didn't see that coming. Then on top of that, he was still recovering from his recent ankle surgery and hobbling around on crutches, who would have thunk???
January 8 was a Saturday, and I had gone skiing with the kids and Maliha and other friends. Cosette did a lesson and then after that I took her on the bunny slope for a couple of hours while the older ones joined Maliha's kids on the bigger slopes. Hanging with Cosette on the bunny slope was a disaster, I am not a ski instructor! She has come so far since that January day, but man, was that a miserable afternoon... we were falling on top of each other, she was crying, wrecking, etc. Around 3:00 Maliha brought my kids back and said she needed to get home (I had no idea why) and encouraged me to get going back too. But no, we stayed until 4:00 closing and then there was a huge line at the gondola to get off the mountain. We didn't get home until 5:30.
The only picture I took that day as we were leaving... the light was so pretty
Back home Ben was a nervous wreck about making our dinner reservation, which was at 6:00. Little did I know he had a strict timeline he was keeping to. I kept asking, couldn't we just push it back 30 minutes? I was soooo tired. And I needed more time to turn around and get ready for my hot birthday dinner date. Nope! He was adamant! There was to be no changing the reservation, couldn't possibly do it. I thought Ben was just exhibiting his usual unyielding military tendencies. Par for the course.
As we raced to the restaurant, Ben missed an important exit off the freeway and was sooo upset. It was not a forgiving mistake, it delayed us another 15 minutes. He was so stressed out I had to tell him everything was going to be ok!
When we got to the restaurant he was like, "Ok. No appetizers! No bread! No desserts! Let's just share a meal. The kids have something planned for you and you don't want to be too full." I pushed back, "This is my birthday dinner. I'm going to eat whatever I want and take as long as I want." I certainly didn't make it easy on Ben, poor guy. I kept foiling his plan to hurry and get us out of there. I kept saying, "Why don't you just relax? I really want to just savor this meal and this time with you!" Poor, poor Ben.
We did have a really good meal, slow roasted veal and delicious roasted vegetables.
We finally made it back home, an hour off target I believe by this point and this is what I was greeted with:
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| Left to Right: Siu-May Grueber, Phaedra Gywn, Carrie Braman, Nikki Schultz, Mike Baron, Jay Geiger, Lauren Mark, Elissa Baron, me, Ben, Tom Walker, Chris Grueber |
Food, friends, family. I was literally shocked.
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Maliha was a huge help... She prepared a ton of the food along with other friends. The kids were so excited. Thanks, Ben!!
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