Happy Birthday, Paul!

Today is Paul's 48th birthday. Unfortunately he has a respiratory bug, and his birthday happens to fall right before the annual trade show in Baltimore so he's been putting in long hours at work. The kids and I were in Maryland from Thursday morning through Monday evening, and he told me even on Sunday he put in a long day (worked until 7pm) and New Year's Day wasn't a day off for him either. Since I gave Ian the day off of school on his birthday in December he thought Paul would get today off of work. Nope doesn't usually work that way when

you're an adult. He was hoping to take tomorrow off of work so that we could take the kids skiing, but that's not happening either. There are two days each winter we could take the kids snow skiing for free. Last year we only did one of the two days for the same reason (preparing for the trade show in Baltimore). One upside to not going skiing tomorrow is that I should be able to get more course preparation done. I am getting nervous about my ability to have everything done in 18 more days.

Yesterday evening the kids and I went to Dunkin Donuts and bought 6 donuts plus a breakfast sandwich for Paul. I think he ate the sandwich last night and one of his donuts this morning. The kids have made him cards, and we have his gifts ready for him to open. I made him rigatoni and meatballs for his dinner. We had that for lunch as the kids and I will eat a light meal on the run for "dinner" because Nadia has an orthodontist appointment at 4:30 and the kids have AWANA tonight while I have choir rehearsal. I'm thinking of getting pizza tomorrow.

I didn't cross paths with Paul very much yesterday so I didn't get around to asking him what he wanted for dinner on his birthday. I know pizza and rigatoni and meatballs are two of his favorites so I don't think he'll care which he has tonight vs. tomorrow night. Although bowling is much more "up Paul's alley" than ice skating, I'm hoping he'll take the kids ice skating sometime this weekend. Nadia was very disappointed that we didn't go ice skating with the Benners as we usually do each December. It was more distressing to her because she can't take ice skating lessons this winter as the lessons are at the same time as her brothers' basketball practices. Ian's choice would be to go see the newest Star Wars movie.