Ambushed On My Birthday... Again

My birthday, 41, came upon us recently. On my 40th my family ambushed me with water balloons and completely surprised me with it. I thought I was more on my guard this year but they got me with silly string and again, completely surprised me. I can assure you, it won't happen again.

My wife always makes me an angel food cake with chocolate icing, my favorite. She even makes the icing. This year Henry, 2+, helped ice the cake. She said he really did help. It looks like he enjoyed it quite a bit. I wonder what the ratio of how much went on the cake and how much went in Henry is?

My oldest, Ben - 13, made a pinata for the festivities. Paper mache and streamers and the well place fin and eye and we have a fish pinata. He was convinced that it was too weak and we'd break it way too fast. We pounded it pretty hard and it took quite a bit to finally break it. Inside were Rolos (which you cannot roll to your friend any more because they are now tapered at the top and just roll in a circle right back to you... I was wondering if that is some sort of candy-commentary on the state of our greedy, self-centered culture), Twix (mmmm), Snickers, Tootsie-Pops, Starbursts, Jolly Ranchers, M&Ms, and those little party popper things that you pull the string and it pops and shoots a little bit of confetti out of it.



The fish theme carried through out the day as the balloons my kids blew up had fish drawn on them and the phrase, "Have a fishy bday" was written on them. There were various hand-drawn signs hanging around the house that sported the same message and same fish drawings. The cake had little candy fishy things on top, too.

We also went to Fuddruckers for hamburgers at lunch. That's my favorite burger place around here. Between the big, fat burger for lunch, the french toast at breakfast and cake and ice cream along the way... I was stuffed and ready for a nap.

All in all we had a good time and it was a good day. Maybe I'll have another one next year.