Ah, This is the Way...

I tried something new this year, and it actually worked rather well. My husband and I decided (it was mostly me deciding, but he went along for the ride) to throw a Labor Day Party. We decided to throw it on Saturday, not Sunday or actual Labor Day, to save our out-of-town relatives a crazy driving weekend.

All week I was regretting this choice for the following reasons:

1. This was my first week back to school and it was a sprint, not a long-distance event.
2. It turned out I did have my grad school class all Saturday.
3. My husband, Em, and myself were all completely pooped by Friday.

Surprisingly enough (which is very good news for my relationship with my lovely husband), Saturday went off quite well. So well, that I might actually attempt something like this party in the future. Not anytime in the near future, of course, but maybe next year.

Here's why it worked:
1. Most of my friends and family could make it.
2. It was a fun start to the weekend.
3. We didn't spend all weekend getting ready.
4. We had one day to party, one to hang out with family members who stayed over, and one day to ourselves (today, which is lovely.)

Because I'm not hosting a party today, I feel that I can get more prepared for the upcoming week. We already went to Toys R Us for a new car seat, did the shopping for the week, and I just cleaned up the kitchen. The rest of my day includes exercise, laundry (yay), a trip to Target (what weekend would be complete without that?), and some other preparation items for tomorrow.

So, if you're celebrating a long weekend, here are my two suggestions:
1. Do it early
2. Or, even better, do it at someone else's house :)

Saving the day (or cake, rather)

Tomorrow we are having a party for our newly two-year old daughter. So tonight, the three of us were rushing around Safeway picking up things for a BBQ.

All was going well...until we got the cake. I picked one out from the case and the guy at the counter wrote "Happy Birthday Emerson" on it. Well, I asked him to write it. What he did it would take my right hand tied behind my back and 7 beers to approximate. It looked awful.

But I'm not a confrontational person. So I rationalized the crappy writing away and took the cake. Well, the doof didn't put the top on tight enough, so when my husband tried to put it in the car, the cake box fell apart. And the cake fell. Face down.

I was near tears so my husband grabbed the cake box and stormed back into the store. He came back 10 minutes later with a new, free, and beautiful cake. He told me that everyone in the store parted like the Red Sea when he came in and that the guy at the cake counter just took the cake back without saying anything.

Now, my husband is also not a confrontational person typically. He had a waiter dump champagne on his head once and he didn't complain. He's about 150 soaking wet, so he must have looked murderous. I guess some guy at the counter said "Help the brother; he looks like he's gonna kill someone."

As far as I'm concerned, he saved the (birth)day and the cake. What more can you ask for than a guy understands the importance of birthday cake.