Shout Hooray!

Before the month is out I've made a goal to catch up on our November happenings.

To kick off the month Mikey had a birthday (on Guy Fawkes day, or, as I like to think of it, My Foxy Guy's day). The celebration (rightfully) lasted for what seemed like a week. The Friday before his birthday we went on an afternoon lunch date and one of my good friends took Ada for several hours so we could have some much needed time on our own.

We met up downtown on our bikes and rode to our lunch spot. After we headed to the National Gallery of Art and stayed there for hours and hours. We quickly glanced over the early Italian altar pieces and stopped by the DaVinci before hitting up some Dutch work and then the Modern gallery in the East building. Seeing the gilded altar pieces with the embossed crowns and faces kept simple with crude features, I was instantly transported to our time Bologna where we saw so many things that looked so similar. We, once again, tossed around the, "I can't believe we lived there" ideas and reminisced a bit about what a year it has been. Then our minds raced forward, trying to see where we'll be a year from now: graduated, some place where Mikey is working and we're setting up more of a permanent home. It feels like we've been nomads for so long.

After a few hours our feet were achy and our eyes were tired. We walked to our bikes and pedaled up Capitol Hill, passed the pond, the Capitol, the Library of Congress and onto Lincoln Park, then home.

Tuesday was his actual birthday. Wanting to do something of a surprise for him, I had two plans in mind: making the dinner he has talked about since we got married, a dinner of appetizer-type dips and a variety of things to dip in them, and, knowing he wouldn't get to see Ada because of the 12-hours worth of make-up classes he had (Happy Birthday, Love, Sandy) making a short, simple video of Ada saying, "Happy Birthday Daddy." What should have taken 20 seconds took all day, and I didn't even finish. Between my time in the kitchen and chasing the little one around, it sadly didn't make the cut. But making its debut below: Our worst-ever happy birthday tribute video to Dad. 

By the time he finally got home, Ada was asleep and the dinner was set with dips and dipees and his requested birthday "cake" of homemade snickers. Oh this boy of mine...

I'm so grateful for my Michael Neal.