The party's over

The week-long celebration of turning 40 seems to be done, and not a moment too soon. It was so much fun, but also, quite honestly, exhausting. And I'm sure that has nothing to do with my advancing age. But the parties, along with the subsequent thank-you notes that needed to be written, combined with hockey tournaments, vacation preparations and an insane work load has made it impossible to find time to blog. That, and the fact that this post required me to scan a few items and figure out how to capture and share a particularly memorable voice mail message.

So in chronological order, here are just a few of the "special" ways people helped me celebrate. For instance, there was the invitation for my surprise party. The outside looks nice enough...

and then you open it up...

The creative director at my agency got me to pose by telling me to give him a stressed out look. It was for something funny he wanted to put on the Web site, he said. Instead, he did some swell swirling technique in photo shop and shared it with all. Lovely!

On my actual birthday, I was greeted by this little ad in the Duluth News Tribune. How much does Sydney look like her Mommy? My boss didn't realize it was a picture of me.

Over the course of the day, numerous relatives sent me e-mail birthday wishes, plus dozens of friends posted greetings on Facebook. That evening, my parents called and, as they always do, sang Happy Birthday to me over the phone. At the end of the conversation they mentioned they had to run because they were on their way to choir practice. I joked that I felt short changed that they didn't get the entire choir to sing to me.

Later in the evening, we returned from dinner to find this message waiting. Pardon the shaky video at the beginning, and the boring visual throughout.

Keep in mind, that song was recorded through a cell phone onto my voice mail, which I then played on speaker phone to record the audio on my camera. And still it sounded that good! I love how much fun they had with it, especially the pianist at the end. No wonder my parents so enjoy singing with this group during their winters in Florida.

One last note... my mother and sister should count themselves lucky that the old photo albums with plastic film are not kind to the pictures you put in them. My brother reminded me of the "birthday cookies" we'd made in the shape of a 40 for our mom, and a 16 for Lisa, pointing out that I'm now that old. I considered scanning that photo and adding it here, however when I pulled out the old album, I discovered the picture has basically faded away. Let me just say, I may be 40, but at least I don't have a curly perm like some close relatives of mine once wore.

Thank you all for making this a birthday I'll never forget.