29th

My golden birthday was the 29th of December and I've finally found some time to sit down and tell you  all about it!

On the 28th as we were going to bed I started to feel achey and had a bad case of the chills. I had a slight fever of 99.1 and felt pretty awful. I haven't had a fever for over 6 years! At 2am Malakai woke up with teething pain (no fever, thank goodness!) and my fever had jumped to 100.1 and Ben was at 99.5 degrees. I was sure we'd have to cancel all our plans for the next couple of days. We woke up late feeling achey but our fevers were gone and never came back.

Ben made us pancakes for my birthday breakfast. While he was cooking I decided to check my email and saw a tweet he had just sent linking to his blog. He had written this story for my birthday. It was very sweet and of course I teared up while reading it. Then he handed me our notebook that we write letters in back + forth (something we started while we were dating back in 2006!) he had written me a note for my birthday. I noticed that some of the letters were darker than others. He had hidden a message in it!

I figured it out quickly and the message revealed what our plans were for the afternoon. He was taking me to La Perla, a pizzeria we had always wanted to go to. It's run by the same owners of one of our favorite restaurants, Bepe & Gianni's. We got a bit of a late start, but at 1:30pm Ben's parents came to hang out while Malakai napped so we could go out.

We had a wonderful relaxed lunch. It was nice to get out just the two of us (it had been a while) and the food was awesome!

As we got in the car Ben told me to check my jacket pocket. In it was this clue...

and before I knew it we were off on a scavenger hunt! We went to the chapel at our alma mater where we first met. 

From there the next clue took us to Autzen Stadium, where we had gone to a football game on the day we found out we were expecting Malakai. 

Next was our first apartment together, which was my apartment that we lived in for a few short weeks before moving into a house.

 After that the clues took us to the starbucks drive thru where I had to use the internet to find out next clue, which took us back home.

All along the way the clues told me about my birthday gifts. One was an itunes download of my choice, another was some downtime while Ben de-clutters the house, and another Starbucks drink. The last gift was in our trunk and it was Chalk Ink markers for my chalkboard!

The whole day was very unexpected. I felt so special and was really proud of Ben for keeping it all from me for so long!