Birthday Weekend

Yesterday was my birthday, and I had a really nice time celebrating this weekend. On Friday morning when I got to school my kids were already in the room (let in by the cleaning lady) decorating. They were writing me nice notes on the whiteboard and putting up balloons. Then, another student arrived with cupcakes she had made for me. The two other fourth grade classes marched into our room about half an hour after school started to sing 'Happy Birthday' to me and to give me cards that they had made. My class was very well behaved all day and I went home feeling really good! Then, on Friday night, Joe and I were invited along with our neighbor (and fellow 4th grade teacher) Jason to another teacher's house for a dinner party. There were 7 people there and one of them was a semi-professional DJ. He set up his DJing equipment in the house and there was great music to accompany our evening of great drinks, fun dancing, amazing food, and entertaining company. There was even birthday pie for dessert (not pumpkin though). It was an amazing Passion Fruit pie that was sweet and tart and delicious. We had a lot of fun that night and went home exhausted. On my real birthday, yesterday, I spent much of the day recovering from the fun night before. We did manage to make it for a little while before it started raining. We went and got pizza for lunch and it was just amazing. It was fresh everything with a thin crust and very authentic Italian tasting. We were planning on walking around more after our meal, but then it looked like it was going to rain..so we walked home instead. The later afternoon was spent lazing around the house and watching a movie (Pan's Labirynth). Then last night we got dressed up and went out to eat at a sushi restaurant owned by the family of one of Joe's students. We had a great dinner and got a lot to eat and drink. Joe asked if the owner was around because he had never met his student's dad before. Anyway, Joe ended up talking to his student on the phone and his dad came over to talk to us a few times...and when we went to pay our bill (which was not cheap) it was on the house! We were (and still are) very excited about this. Today we have a few possible plans in the works but so far have been reading and drinking coffee. It really has been a terrific birthday weekend!