a birthday boy

The Goates came into town for Paul's birthday weekend, and since it snowed Friday, my lacrosse practice was cancelled Saturday, so we all headed into the city together. It warmed up pretty nicely and we had a lovely day there.

The American Girl Doll store is nuts. You can pay (a lot of money) to have the dolls hair done.
The moms, daughters, and dolls all match.

Even their bathrooms are like a dollhouse.

I loved this bouncer/balloon combo.

Mmmmm Magnolia.

 >>>>

Sunday was the actual birthday day (and how mean is it that Daylight Savings happened and cut Paul, Chelsey, Ian and Isaac's birthday's short by an hour?!).

Marian helped me cook Paul an omelet for breakfast in bed. Then Paul opened presents and I was so thrilled to have him open the Mongolia book I made him that was a total surprise (he never lets me pull off surprises).

We headed to church and enjoyed that, then a quick chicken salad on croissant lunch before heading to my band concert. :) I play Tuba in a community band and Paul was so nice to give up an hour or two of his day to hear my perform.

We headed back to our little apartment and had dinner (Donna's delicious ribs recipe - my first time making them) then went on a little walk outside before having cake (bavarian tort, a Frandsen speciality).

Reuby wanted to help with the cake and did a great job knowing all his letters and helping me arrange them.

And if I may... I'm going to take a quick moment to sing the praises of that birthday boy. I'm so glad I have him. He makes life joyful, and fun, and meaningful. He supports me and loves me. We balance each other out. He is interesting, thoughtful, dedicated and hardworking and bonus! ...he has great hair.
I hope you had a great birthday PB. I love you.

In addition, lacrosse has begun!
Tuesday's practice started out rainy but then we got this rainbow and had our warmest day yet.

On Wednesday, the girls gave me a fish. Named Franny.
They are so goofy and fun to be around (most the time but sometimes teenage girls can drive me nuts too).

 ok bye.

you like it.

Here is a little peak into our lives the past few weeks.

We had a lovely Saturday morning complete with blueberry muffins and the first pro race of the the year streaming on the computer. I was grateful for the crappy weather that kept my cyclist inside snuggling on the couch with me to enjoy our last weekend before the craziness of his cycling season and my lacrosse season began.

We got free tickets to the Rutgers basketball game and invited some friends (Aaron and Kristin) and happened to run into other friends there (Julia and Patrick).

Paul became re-obsessed with the guitar and one night I came home and found him finishing up a Pearl Jam documentary and strumming along. It's fun to have music in our home (see Tuba too!)

Paul's cycling team hosted the first race of the collegiate road season and Paul was in line for the TT and hanging out with this friend from NYU - I think they met at Killington?

I always love watching this dude race.

The crit was especially fun because Paul had a whole fan club there!

Thanks for coming Sheri, Karl, Drew, Kate, Aaron and Kristin!

(Adam and Carrie - you are now "Frantastic"! You made the blog!)

In other news, I got stuck behind street sweepers for 35 minutes the other day and that was the worst.

I finally found a place with yummy Pad Thai near our home  - bonus - it's name is Pad Thai but I'd only ever ordered curry there - ha!

I sort of chopped my hair off and was a little nervous about it until I realized that it looked 100 times more healthy and that no one actually really noticed the difference, which made me comforted that long hair is long hair no matter how long. (I just made that up but I think it's Dr. Seuss inspired).

I'm feeling embarrassed about that before picture but let's blame it on the short mirror.

And finally, New Jersey finally got a snow storm that I was around for! This is my lacrosse field all covered in white.

Which brings us to... birthday weekend!