I had felt a lot of anticipation for my 30th birthday. Probably six months ago, I heard a program on NPR which I had listened to as a pod-cast. It had a woman on it who mentioned something about life consisting of seven-year increments. At that time, I realized that the concept fit rather well with my life thus far and that 30 was the end of one increment (the get married, work really hard, play hard, and get my masters degree phase) and the beginning of a new increment. I suddenly felt a self-imposed pressure to figure out what 30-37 would be. I thought about it for months and figured I needed to start flossing regularly, wearing sunscreen on all exposed skin (not just the sensitive areas), drink less, do more yoga, etc. etc. I (actually we) have contemplated the next phase being the “kid phase” which is still quite possible, but in short, I am now 30 and am still not exactly sure what my ground-breaking decision for the next phase is. I will keep you posted.
What I do know is that my husband can throw one heck of a birthday celebration. It all started when I was back in Boise and looking up my itinerary to fly back to Shanghai on united.com. I had known that Andy had used my frequent flyer miles for something for my birthday, but I forgot about it and when I checked my itinerary, I actually saw two of itineraries…one for Alecia Hoobing and one for Lindsay Bolick. I was immediately disappointed that I had ruined the surprise, but equally excited that Lindsay would be coming to visit for my birthday.
Then, the morning before Lindsay arrived, I was on my 6:15am phone conference with my coworkers in Boise when Andy came over to me and put a brand-new pearl necklace around my neck. I could barely even say thank you until I had muted the phone. After the call was over, I got good look at them, and discovered they are a set of beautiful, large white pearls. He had really outdone himself.
Next, in Lindsay’s luggage, she had brought me a backpack that Andy had bought for me and had shipped to her house in the states. I have admired Andy’s backpack that he takes everywhere for years so he purchased a petite, maroon, ladies version of it. It is so cool!
Finally, last, but not least, he threw me a party at a local restaurant with all of our friends from Shanghai, and my good friend from Boise, Lindsay. It was so fun to have so many friends together in one place. And Lindsay really was a trooper pushing through the jet lag the night after she had arrived! To top off the party, Andy had even purchased mini chocolate cakes that were amazing. It was all so incredible…he really went above and beyond this year!!
Lindsay was in town from late last Friday evening (due to a plane delay which caused them to return to San Francisco after dumping fuel in the ocean) until this morning. While she was only here for four days, we really packed in a lot of things, while at the same time were able to relax and hang out together as well. The best way to describe Lindsay’s trip here was the “eating tour of Shanghai.” We took her to all of our favorite restaurants and then found things to do in between meals. We also made it out for a couple of runs and it was fantastic to have a running partner for a couple of days (even though our outdoor run ended miserably due to the heat.) Other highlights included introducing Lindsay to all of my Shanghai friends, shopping, did I mention eating and an unexpected stop at the ice bar last night, before she left. As you can see from the picture, the bar was covered in ice and served only vodka. There were hundreds of different brands and flavors of vodka to choose from. My tangerine flavored vodka went down much easier than my memories of vodka from college. The bar even provided North Face fleece parkas for the trip inside the bar.
It was such a great birthday and such a treat to have Lindsay here. We are now really looking forward to our next visitors, Andy’s parents at the end of September.
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