Category: Life

Birthday boat day!

Happy TurnersEvery year someone in this house gets a little older. This year it happened to be Jess, and what better way to celebrate getting older than to spend the day on the lake with some great friends and perfect weather! For the past few years we’ve wound up on the lake near the end of the summer. Every time we go out we have a blast and make a point to do it more often. Of course the more often part never happens, but we still have a great time.

In years past we’ve had a bigger boat, more people, and MUCH MORE DRINKING! However, with every passing year our bodies get a little bit older and the responsibilities to ourselves and our kids goes up. The decision was made to tone back the consumption and tone up the fun. This turned out to be a pretty smart choice. Rather than ending the day feeling completely smashed and unable to take care of the kiddos, we came home a bit sunburned, maybe a little light headed, but totally able to hang with the boys and not wish we had made better choices throughout the day. I probably should have put just a tad more sunscreen on my arms, but that’s about it!

The group of people on the boat was interesting. Usually its a circle of friends that pretty much all know each other. Yesterday there were certainly some that had met in the past, but we also had some new friends. My sister and her husband were there, we had some old friends we hadn’t seen in a while, and some new friends who brought a great mix to the crowd. In addition to new faces, we also had a tube for pulling behind the boat. Usually we end up in a cove somewhere jumping/sliding off the boat and just kinda farting around the lake. This time we took turns tubing around and really being a bit more active. I think this was clutch in the assistance of not getting demolished by the son and a-a-a-alcohol.

So the birthday boat day was a total success this year. No one totaled their car the night before and had to spend the day in a sling and on pain meds and we subjected to the abundance of fireball in the sky and fireball in a shot glass. It was a great day and we will do it again. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Maybe next time we can take our boys out on the lake. I think they really would enjoy it. Maybe not Jack, but by the time we’re back on the lake he’ll be nearly two, so it might not be so bad. Wait… almost two?! That means he’s almost one now. EEK!! Where has the time gone.

Pics of the fun day!

Great expectations

"Great" ExpectationsBut not the Charles Dickens kind. Well, actually I’ve never read the book, or even seen the 1998 movie starting Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. So perhaps it’s exactly like that. However, for the sake of this post, let’s just say it’s not.

During that small window each day when it’s possible, Jess and I had a great conversation. We talked about how we have a bad habit of planning big for pretty much anything. No matter what it is, we always set the bar high, but inevitably our reality is far from the expectations. I’ll use last night as an example. For the past few weeks we’ve been planning a fun night at our house with some friends. They were going to bring their kids up, we were going to make some appetizers, they were going to make dinner, we were going to have some drinks and general hangoutary. The kids would play, the music would be on chill, the wine would flow, and at the end of the night we’d all feel good cause the thing we’d planned for weeks had finally happen. Now it’s not like these friends live close or we see all the time. This takes time to plan due to distance and a total of 6 kids between the two couples.

Well, no about 30 mins before we were expecting a phone call with a “we’re on the way!” we got a call with “um…. something’s come up and we can’t make it.” [Insert a lot of the story that I’m going to leave out]. Jess and I both were left with disappointment and a ton of food, wine, and baklava. The next hour was spent trying to figure out how to salvage the evening and still make it epic! Not so much with “let’s calk up our losses and just hang out at home.” It had to be who can we call, where can we do, how can we still have the BEST. NIGHT. EVER. Eventually we decided to go to Target, buy a new game we could all play, get some take-out (it was going to be the best food we could find) and enjoy the evening playing our new game, drinking the wine we had and generally having a grand old time. By the time we got home we had a new game, an order from Burger King and at least 1 grumpy kid. Ok, we’re still going to make this EPIC!!!! Fast forward to post wine and whopper time and we’re on the couch playing Lego Jurassic World and I’m the only one that actually enjoys the game. Ten thirty rolls around and we’re in bed ready to call it a night.

So a night that we had been anticipating for a while fell through, no bigs. The our plan B was put into motion and kinda flopped. Again, nothing to fret over. But for what ever reason going into any plan Jess and I both have a tendency to build them up bigger than they should be. This happens more often than not. Its something we can work on I’m sure, but really it just comes down to not trying to make things a bigger deal than they are.

Life can be simple unless you deem it otherwise. There’s really no reason to get hopes up over something that is rather trivial. Going on a Disney cruise? Get your hopes. Going to the store with 2 kids and expect it to be a total success AND everything is on sale? Keep things realistic and you won’t be flustered when you walk out of there and your kids have no shoes on and are pissed off cause they were out of free sprinkle cookies in the bakery. Life is ever changing and its best to change flow with it. Everyone wins and I fully expect to win. All the time.