Birthday Celebrating

Angel and I both celebrated our birthdays last week. His 28th and my 21st! His birthday comes before mine, so he would like to point out that that he was 28 and married to a 20 year old for a few days. I get the impression that the older we both get, the more comfortable he gets with his cradle-robber status. When we had our 18th and 11th birthdays in the same week, he wasn't at all interested in focusing on the several day gap when I was 10 and he was 18.

Just kidding, ya'll. I didn't even meet the old man till I was 17!

Angel worked a 12 hour shift on his birthday, so I took him out the next morning for breakfast. In order to surprise him on his birthday outing, I made him close his eyes during the entire time that I was driving from our house to his favorite arcade, which made him very, very nervous. He tried to keep track of where we were going by the turns that he felt, but was unsuccessful, and surprised when we got to the arcade and played a few rounds of Dance Dance Revolution (his favorite game). At this point we can reflect on the differences between even the happiest of married couples. We both like Dance Dance Revolution, but he insists on playing at a difficult level and getting Ds and Es. I always play the easy level and get As and Bs. I don't understand, but I think it's just a demonstration of two different attitudes toward life.

Angel had been wanting a houseplant for some time, and when I saw the brand label on this one, I knew it was perfect! Can you read it? Exotic Angel Plants. Heehee. He also got several other of his favorite things, like M&Ms and Calvin Klein cologne and red tennis shoes to wear at work.

I haven't bought any new earrings in a seriously long time. Not since before we got married, anyways. I love earrings that are slightly unusual: my favorite earrings are a pair of gold pinecones, and the second-runners up are a pair of faux sparkly paperclips. I told Angel I wanted some really random earrings for my birthday, and this is what he gave me:

Humming birds and bumble bees! These definitely qualify as random!

What I love about the hummingbird earrings is that if I put them in the right way, it looks like the hummingbird is just about to snack on the tiny flower stud that I always wear in my second piercing. This amuses me tremendously! And, by the way, taking pictures of your ear is very awkward.

For my birthday, we had a small party with a few of my siblings, cousins, and friends. I love playing games, and most of the time the parties that I host are far too big for convenient game playing, So, with just a few people, we grilled pizza sandwiches over a bonfire and then played Bop it, Apples to Apples, and our own version of charades which included a tiebreaker round that involved acting out a word using only your facial expressions. I think my brother Isaac's facial demonstration of the word "taser" will go down in the family history. Too bad that we were all laughing too hard to even try guessing the right word!

Angel also gets a wonderful husband award for this birthday! He, amazingly, bought me a dress! He picked it out all by himself. It was a gorgeous, elegant number, from Banana Republic, a store that I would never shop at myself due to the high prices. Unfortunately, it was too big on me! It was a Banana Republic size 0, which I feel must be much more generous than the average size 0. Angel was smart enough to keep the receipt, so we returned it, but they don't make that exact dress in any smaller sizes, so that was disappointing, since I was already in love with it! We scoured the rest of the stores in the mall, but were unable to find anything else that was comparably amazing and that would, at the same time, fit!

But now I have a rain check on my birthday dress. I will find one, eventually! Do you have any good suggestions on stores or brands where I'd find elegant, slightly more grown up dress styles in smaller sizes?  Any advice for me? I'm 5'5'', so I'm not short, and I'm not super small--just slightly too small for a Banana Republic size 0, apparently!