Birthday surprise

Today, I am thirty-three. Which sounds oldish to me, for some reason . . . but I don't really feel old. :) We have been having a nice, quiet, lazy family day before Jim starts his next job (which is a huge praise in itself, as this has been a very slow winter again for us--but he's had work for the past couple weeks and now has a garage to build, which should take about a month!).

Anyway, this afternoon Jim was telling me about some flowers he found growing on the ledge beside our house, and when he showed me, I was so excited to discover they were mayflowers!!! I have never seen any around our yard before. I think they're so pretty and they smell heavenly. I always loved reading in the Anne books about how her oldest son, Jem, would bring her the first mayflowers each spring. I would rather leave ours alone than pick them, in hopes that they will spread more . . . but if we had a lot of them, you can bet I'd be picking some. :) We also found some tiny yellow violets in the woods today. It's been a very early spring--not at all usual here in NH, and I think it's kind of amusing that we have mayflowers in April. :) But, it was a lovely birthday surprise!!

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I wrote all that this afternoon, not knowing that another fun surprise was in store for me! Last week, I had hinted (OK, more than hinted! :)) that it would be fun to go out for supper for my birthday, since I had a $10 coupon for the Weathervane (a favorite seafood restaurant). But Jim suggested we use a frozen pizza coupon instead, and I was fine with that. In fact, we just picked up the pizza earlier today at Walmart, and I was planning to cook it this evening . . . but around 4:30, our friend Diana showed up to babysit the kids and Jim took me out for a date! I was completely surprised!!! I am very hard to surprise, so it was really cool that he pulled off such a good one. :) We did go to the Weathervane and had a wonderful time together; it was so much fun to relax and talk without interruptions!

All in all it was a lovely birthday. Earlier today we took a short family hike and got some cute pictures, and Jim also got me a couple of presents--a new water bottle and some cooking spoons that were on my wish list. :) My family made me feel very special and loved today . . . I am so blessed!!