One Husband's Journey: A Milestone Birthday

Craig hit a milestone.  He turned the big 4-0.  He's not into being the center of attention or wanting to be surrounded by lots of people.  Craig always prefers a night spent with family and maybe a few closest friends.  With such a momentous birthday to celebrate, I really wanted to do something special for my favorite person.  He always puts everyone else first and rarely thinks of himself.  It took some help from friends, but I managed to pull off a very momentous early birthday weekend for Craig.

The morning of Halloween, Craig woke up to Preston holding a new Dallas Stars shirt.  We then told Craig rather than trick or treating, we were going to see the Dallas Stars hockey team play the Anaheim Ducks.  First, the kids had to head to school and Craig and I had a date planned.  We went bowling and had a delicious lunch at Houlihan's.

Let me first say, Halloween can be such a fun day with all of the costumes that people wear.  We saw Spongebob bowling!!!

We headed to the hockey game later that day and again were humored by all the costumes.  We saw so many cool things:  the cast of Wizard of Oz, Captain America, Waldo, Jesus.  Plus, the game was so much fun!!!!

The next day was Preston's final baseball game of the season.  We're always excited when it's game day.  Preston's team finished the season with a win and then it was off to enjoy Craig's bday dessert-homemade apple pie (we did everything early).  My pie is Craig's favorite (it's a secret family recipe) and he enjoyed it hot with some vanilla ice cream.  Heaven!!!

Finally, that Sunday held one more early surprise for him.  Tickets to the NASCAR race!!  Yes, it seems redneck and yes, people say it's not fun to watch them drive in a circle for hours.  However, it's been on our bucket list for years.  Plus, it's only about a 15 minute drive from where we live!!!  On race weekends, we can actually hear the hum of the race cars from our house.

We arrived at Texas Motor Speedway a couple hours early to check out everything and eat some lunch.  All of the drivers were introduced and then we heard the revving of the engines.  Once they got the green flag, it was on (or "boogity, boogity, boogity" as they say in race lingo).  It was absolutely exciting to watch as those cars took off.  NASCAR fans are the real deal and you can bet they would tell you who they were rooting for and who they were not rooting for.  The end of the race was a nail biter (to NASCAR fans anyways) and it got exciting.  It was even more exciting after the race when the big fight broke out (Google it).

It was a fabulous weekend and Craig was so surprised by all of it.  I can't express my gratitude to some friends that helped us out with all the tickets.  His actual bday on December 6 was much more low key.  It started with breakfast in bed for him while watching Home Alone (we love to watch it during Christmastime).  Unfortunately, our dinner plans were scraped because I took Kaitlyn to Urgent Care and she was diagnosed with the flu (and later she had a positive throat culture for Strep).  We also had to cancel our date to The Nutcracker, but it was still a low-key day spent together.

Craig, hope your birthday was memorable and fun.  You deserved every single bit of it plus much more.  We love you and everything you do for us.  Enjoy this next decade with much more fun, trips, events, and making memories!!!