Another Birthday

Jake with a few of his presents at his birthday party.

1 May 2016

We had another birthday recently when Jake hit the quarter-century mark on April 30th. Planning a party for him was tricky, with everyone working different schedules. We finally opted to celebrate on Sunday, the day after his birthday. Even then it was a tight squeeze.

Chris and Sarah had church until noon and, with Sarah serving in the nursery and Chris in the Sunday school presidency, they couldn't get away early. Mark didn't get off work until 2:00, and Jake had to report to his job at the WorldMark resort at 2:45, meaning he had to leave us about the same time Mark was getting home.

Dylan watches Jake open his gifts.

(You can see that I still haven't put away my Nativity scenes.)

So we decided that Chris and Sarah would come over right after church and we would have a family lunch instead of our usual Sunday family dinner. Dylan would grill burgers and we would eat lunch by 1:00, leaving time afterward to open presents and enjoy mint-chip ice cream and birthday cake. Jake actually requested my from-scratch sugar-free cheesecake, which is pretty delicious if I do say so myself. Hopefully, we all thought, Mark would be home just in time to witness the gift-openings and enjoy dessert with us.

It all sounded really good in theory. In reality, however...

My sugar-free chocolate-chip cheesecake, made with 

sugar-free chocolate chips and sugar-free chocolate frosting.

Dylan went out to fire up the grill at 12:30 and discovered that the propane tank was empty. It must have run out just as Mark had finished grilling our chicken breasts a couple of weeks ago, so he hadn't realized it was empty. Usually it runs out in the middle of grilling, causing us to scramble to refill the tank in the midst of dinner preparations. Just our luck that this time it didn't, leaving us unaware of the problem until the last possible moment.

Jake's gift from Dylan was parked in the driveway.

So Dylan threw the tank in the car and hurried to nearby Elk Horn for a refill, but they close on Sundays. Then he raced south on the highway to the nearest gas station that does refills, but their machine was broken. Then he headed back north to Walmart and ended up switching out our tank for one of theirs, which was a little more expensive, but we were running out of time.

In the end, we settled in to eat our burgers a little after 1:30, and Jake set aside his meal at 1:40 to open his presents. We cut up the cheesecake and ate some around 2:15, right before Jake left for work, but no one was really hungry for it yet, so a few slices went back in the fridge until later. And Mark worked late, until about 2:20, so he missed out on everything.

Even though our celebration didn't go as planned, we did get to be together and we did get to honor Jake for his special day ( a day late), so it was all good. And I hope Jake knows he was wished the happiest of birthdays from all of us!