Remember when you were a little kid and when it came time for your birthday party, the decor would always include balloons? Well, this birthday for me included many many balloons. Chris, the thoughtful engineer, decided to give me my birthday presents via a balloon hunt. First, he left my birthday card on our couch - an easy place for me to see it as I returned from walking Chancho in the morning. In the card he talked about memories that I have had each year since I was born. He told me that he hid balloons, which signified each year of my life, around the house, and each balloon had money inside that represented the memories I had to remember each year by.
I started in the basement - where balloons 1-10 were. My favorite was in our chameleon room (yes, we own a chameleon) and I had the biggest trouble finding any balloons there. Then, I looked in our cooler and there was a big poofy balloon! It was great because as I popped the balloons, money would explode out like a pinata. This one was found in our downstairs shower. 
I later went upstairs to find balloons 11-20. My favorite one there was the one hidden in Chancho's crate. It was funny because when I popped the first balloon, Chancho went crazy - so scared. I noticed Chancho was avoiding his crate that morning, so he pretty much was giving away the secret that a balloon was in his crate. ha! We found out another quirky thing about our dog - he is terrified of balloons. Outside in our front and back yard was 21-28. Yes, I'm now 28. It was such a fun morning!
I later went upstairs to find balloons 11-20. My favorite one there was the one hidden in Chancho's crate. It was funny because when I popped the first balloon, Chancho went crazy - so scared. I noticed Chancho was avoiding his crate that morning, so he pretty much was giving away the secret that a balloon was in his crate. ha! We found out another quirky thing about our dog - he is terrified of balloons. Outside in our front and back yard was 21-28. Yes, I'm now 28. It was such a fun morning! Well, this wasn't my actual birthday. On my actual birthday, I had to travel for work, arrive late to Chicago, drive around and get lost with my co-workers, arrived at the hotel after 10pm (before I had to teach a 6-hour class the next day) and pretty much just go to bed. But I'd like to consider my actual birthday the morning of my balloon hunt. My birthday truly started about 4 days before my birthday when I got to see my brother and sister in law in Austin!! What a great way to begin my birthday and a wonderful 28th year!
Garden Update: The last picture are our tomato plants and green pepper plants. We have many many growing tomatoes and bell peppers, but none are mature enough to pick. It's September and starting to get pretty cool, so we are crossing our fingers that we'll have little tomatoes to enjoy soon. Our wonderful neighbors have been kind enough to bring over their tomatoes. Sigh. They tell us that they've had the best luck with their tomatoes this year and they bring over what they can no longer eat....because they have so many. Well, we hope to share our tomatoes with them in a few weeks when ours are just too many to for us. hehe.
