number 29, a good one.

Nothing makes me giddier than a cup of steaming hot black coffee,

and a brand new sheet of sterling silver.

Except for maybe a surprise birthday party.....

on the river....

with a buncha diehard friends,

in the rain,

with homemade meatballs and spaghetti.

Yep. That happened.

Me, with my back to the bank, no idea there's a party behind me....

as if the party barge on the river with the keg of beer wasn't enough...

after many one-liner jokes...

to keep me turned the right way....

like:

Why does the mermaid wear seashells?

because the d-shells were too big and the b-shells didn't fit!

HAHAAH!

Jesse whipped the boat around...

and TA-DA!

A party!!!

All thanks to this wonderful man.

My Jesse.

Sneaky.

Not only did he pull the wool over my eyes,

but faked being sick so he could make 7lbs worth of homemade elk meatballs,

red sauce from scratch (mostly garden veggies),

and ran all the party garb to the take-out ahead of time.

in the rain.

I wish I could say I knew all along,

but this. was. a. surprise.

.......

Happy girl this morning....

I think I'll head to the bench.

After a week of birthday celebration, and a continual communal spaghetti-feed with friends, 

(leftover beer and spaghetti just doesn't go away alone!)

It's about time I go back to *work*....

and the black lillies.

they. were. awesome.

so awesome that I forgot about the sneaky birthday company I keep, 

and I forgot about the cream pie.

The one that ends up in your face every birthday.

I wish I could say I had pictures, 

but it was dark, and after much imbibing....

this is all I got of the whole night....

besides the pie in the face.

and I guess I could say I should have known better.

but,

this was a surprise, too.

....

I do hope these wonderful people know they are loved,

because it was pretty apparent they felt the same way about me.

So in case there was any doubt,

I LOVE my party-barging, 

dark-beer drinking, 

raincoat-sporting,

ain't afraid of thunderstorms on the river,

 sneaky pie-flinging,

balloon-tying,

joke-telling

crazy buncha diehards.

xo Erin.