The sun came out today. It was so nice. Still chilly, but just seeing the bright sky with dynamic clouds lit up with real honest-to-goodness sunshine was like waking up from a three day long shiver-fest. Which actually I was suffering from. I’ve never had that happen before when I’ve gotten sick. Shivering? Freezing cold for three days straight? It was really terrible and weird.

Bug and I are sooooooo much better. We’re still stuck with the snoctopusses living in our sinuses and we cough every other word but at least we can think clear thoughts again. For a while there I thought I was going to take up residence on the couch. I didn’t even check my email. You know it’s bad when I go missing off the internet. I usually eat colds for breakfast. They hardly ever slow me down but this one…it was a mean mother-buster. Mean, green and you just better hope you’re not around me while I’m still contagious.

Bla bla bla…I don’t need to complain about the common cold. You guys have all had it before and heard this a thousand times. Cold schmold. What you really want to hear about is my sister-in-law’s thirtieth birthday party right?

Wooo Hoooo! You only turn thirty once. My family has been talking about this birthday all year but poor CC, just like every year when her birthday finally came around we were all strapped for cash, out of time and feeling like big clods of dirt for not planning something really extravagant. It sucks having your birthday so near Christmas.

When I was trying to pull some kind of plan out thin air, I asked CC if she’d ever really had a big birthday party growing up and how her parents pulled it off. She thought about it for a little while and then said she didn’t think she’d ever had a big birthday bash. Here she is related to me, the party-planning queen, and she’s never had a birthday bash?!! That is just sad sad sad. I should go dunk my head in a bucket of pig slop.

So we thought and we thought and we thought and nothing really happened. Being the super-capable person that CC is, she said she could have a party at her house and we could all cook Chinese food. It was a good idea but I was thinking that’s not really how a birthday party is supposed to go down. It’s bad enough she cooked and cleaned for her own ten-year wedding anniversary. We needed to do something really fun and different and it couldn’t be at CC’s house. But where? None of us wanted to drag the kids out to a fancy dinner. But we didn’t want to leave them behind either. She’s their mom after all. My house was out. My mom’s house was out…

Then I got a wicked idea. How about we have a party at Bethany‘s house! You all know how much I love the Actuallys’ house. That place is made for having parties. If I lived there I would have had forty of them by now. But you know how it is. Some people aren’t really the party-throwing types. I perfectly understand that. Now how could I break this news to Bethany?

Um, hi. Can I have a party at your house?

Hahahahahahhahahhahaahhaaaaa. I’m such a dork. Thankfully, Bethany is a dork too because after she laughed at me for about twenty minutes, she said, “Sure! Why not?”

And that is how we came to have CC’s 30th birthday party at Bethany’s house. It was great.

We had Chinese food at a restaurant that was not very expensive.

Bethany made the cake (of course). It was delish. She killed us with chocolate.

We painted pottery at a local pottery-painting store and then we crashed in one of their many guest rooms. Technically they have one guest room but that’s one more than any of us have so it was quite a luxury.

Then the next morning we opened presents and lived happily ever after…

Well until Bug and I came down with the killer cold from hell. But before that it was all fun.