Thank you for your birthday wishes..

Many thanks to you all for your wonderful birthday wishes. I realise that I am a a few days late with this "Thank You" but I did want to share with you what my birthday celebrations entailed.

You see, in my family our" birthday" usually lasts longer than the normal one day celebration. And it always starts with an early morning "Happy Birthday" telephone calls from one of my children.
This year it started at:

6.30AM  Yes, you read this correct, 6.30am wake up call from Sam. (No2 daughter) She was on her way to work, and just had to call and sing Happy Birthday. Of course I just love it, as it has become a bit of a tradition to wake the "Birthday" person up as early as you can.

7.30AM  Evette calls (No 1 daughter) from the US, with my second Happy Birthday call. And to let me know that her birthday song has been left on my Blog. Half an hour later,  and I really did have to get ready for work.
8.00AM Birthday card and present from Nan and Pop before finally getting myself off to work.

8.30AM Arrive at work to another tradition. When someone has a birthday we always dress up their work station with lots of balloons, lollies (sorry, candy)the Birthday Hat, and as you can see some Leis. And of course a birthday card. This year the girls went a bit further, one of our Sales Team is a great cook and she made a Gluten Free, white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake, topped with fresh whipped cream and fresh raspberries. I tell you it was divine. Thanks Mandy.

By this time it was getting a bit difficult to stay focused, and it didn't help that we were working to short deadlines for our paper on Tuesday, as Monday is a holiday. But we soldiered on. By about 11am the girls decided that perhaps we should go to the restaurant next door for lunch, after all it was the Friday before a long weekend. Well you didn't have to tell me twice, and so the lunch order was taken and we all worked on until 11.45am.
I hope you are all still with me, because it just gets better..

11.45am I was working away at my desk when one of the girls said " Hi Phil" and I looked up and there was my hubby, standing in our office with a bunch of flowers and a big grin on his face. He works about half an hour away from me, and had organised to have some extra time off work to take me out to lunch. It turns out that the he had rung the girls and told them what he wanted to do and they had pretended to organise our team lunch.

I have to tell you that in between all this excitement I was getting text messages and phone calls from family and friends wishing me "Happy Birthday" . By the time I finished work on Friday afternoon I had to come home for a cup of tea and a lie down. All this excitement is a bit much for a girl to handle.

But then of course we had the Saturday night celebrations too..

 7PM On Saturday night we went to one of our favourite restaurants in Auckland, "Gigi's." It is owned by a long time friend of my Dad's, and we try and go there as often as we can. We met up with Stephen ( my son) and his girlfriend Alys, Sam and Roland, and our dear friends Paul and Nadia.  The last time we were all together at the same time was Christmas, so you can imagine there was lots of catching up to do.
We talked and ate, drank lots of red wine, talked some more and ate some more, and just generally had a great time, laughing and joking together. You would never come out to dinner with my family and expect a quiet meal. We are a bit of a rowdy bunch.
I was also lucky enough to get birthday pressies.
Steve and Alys gave me a 3 DVD collection of a great British comedy series called "Black Books." One of my favourite programmes.
Sam and Roland gave me Westfield gift voucher, Westfield is our local shopping mall, and I have to tell you I love getting gift vouchers. And will put it to good use. I'm thinking jewellery.
Paul , Nadia and Jake gave me a three book collection of novels by Paullina Simons. One of my favourite authors.
By the time we left the restaurant and made our way home it was nearly midnight.
It was a great night, and I have to say an amazing birthday.

It wasn't until we were leaving the restaurant that we realised that in all the catching up we were doing during dinner, no one had taken any photos of us together.
Not to worry, there's always next time.