Happy Birthday, "Mike!"

I have a very hard time keeping a secret. I usually am busting out with giddiness just thinking about fun and exciting things, like surprise parties, which need to be kept on the QT, and to whom I can blab this under wraps information. So I am incredibly proud of myself for not breathing a word in the weeks leading up to today... As Milhouse says, "This guy. This is the guy!:
	Yay! Happy birthday Michael!

A few weeks ago Jon emailed us and invited us to Michael's significant landmark big 30th birthday shindig. We accepted and I struggled for weeks as to what to get for a landmark birthday for someone I feel I know, but not totally, and somoene who is almost completely out of my demographic.

I mean, really now. What... a sweater from the Gap? A gift certificate to ... something? Some restaurant? He's already got the new Radiohead CD so that got shot in the foot. A gift certificate to Home Despot for all his sink replacement needs? Oh no, wait. He took care of that himself. And maybe just maybe Home Despot is a touch uninspired and impersonal, don't you think...

Geocaching then came to mind, especially after I pitched the idea of a geocaching related gift for him over to Jon and Jon gave his stamp of enthusiastic approval.

I thought of buying him all kinds of geocaching related swag from the online shop.

Then I thought it would be a more classy gift to give a family membership to the Trustees of the Reservations, an organization of which we are (proud) members. The TTOR buys/is gifted properties all over the state and has a few super swanky bed & breakfasts and some campgrounds in its jurisdiction, in addition to just general properties saved from development.

For geocaching, the maps and trail guides which they publish are great. And you top that off with super discounts at romantic get-aways, the invites to the wine & cheese gatherings AND a newsletter and it's the perfect gift.

So that sounded all fine and good and I realized while it was cool that it too was rather impersonal.

What's with me and wanting to give a PERSONAL gift. Shut up -- gift certificate to Amazon or B&N or something. But no. I'm struggling with this. Then, I get it -- I tell Doug I wanted to put a geocache out in the world for Michael, the way I did Doug's own Christmas present. And have him be the first finder, and that would be a cool gift.

Doug agrees.

Last Saturday we all went out and hid the thing, made it a multi-cache, totally got hot and sweaty and sticky and bug-bit and over tired. Jessie cried when we were almost done (but she stopped when she realized we were finally at the top of the hill) and all told I think it's a pretty nice geocache.

I know I liked putting it out there, and last week was just bursting to write about it here. I was so proud of us, all the fun we had finding the nooks and hidey places, the planning, the "how can we torture this guy and make him so work for this!" kind of discussions Doug and I had when placing the clues.

And I'm extra super proud of me for keeping it a secret.

I loved the look on his face when he opened it. I think he liked it.

Here's the link to the cache page -- and once he finds it I will put in the correct coordinates (right now the system coords are off the coast of Maine) so the rest of the world can go enjoy "Xeraphas Hill."

---

The party was fun -- Geoff was a little off the hook, way to excited combined with chocolate mousse cake made for a kooky ride home. The funny thing was that Michael's brother and mom seemed genuinely entertained by his burping at the table. We were, of course, aghast... but they thought (or so they lead me to believe) that he was a laugh riot. And part of the fun for Geoff is a willing audience. And he knew that they thought he was funny, so... fuel to the fire.

There were some very funny pictures taken, I think there's one of Jon with Geoff where Geoff's got the Spongebob hat on his chin. My camera batteries were close to dead, so I only got the good picture of Michael up at the top and this one of Jessie:

Backstory on the ... weirdness. Michael's brother took a Spongebob hat and placed it on a balloon, which in and of itself was pretty damn funny. Then, he realized that it could stand on it's own, upside down on the point of the hat. Well. After we stopped laughing at that, we foraged on to several experiments of "What can we stand this hat on?"

Subjects included Michael's poor grandma (who seems to have a great sense of humor or the patience of a saint, or both), the straw coming out of Nathan's soda, my head, the pepper shaker on the table and other Spongebob hats. Hence, Jessica here. What a riot.

We got home and needed to go for a geocache, so we went to do one of the ones from last week which resulted in our frustration. Found it with very little difficulty and moved on to another part of Andover for this one, and it's sister... but found we didn't have time for the second cache, and may have the coords messed up so we bailed on it and came home for dinner.

I did manage to take a picture that I'm rather fond of, and may do some stuff to it in photoshop and print it out.

I am a big fan of blackeyed susans, and I took this picture with the macro feature of my camera, so the lens is pretty much right up against that front flower. I love how the greens and yellows all came out in this.

Overall today I think I'm rather pleased with myself, I sound it, don't I? A nice change for someone who is usually D'oh-ing herself.

Anyway -- I'm rather tired, Geoff wore me out today. Caching energized me but now I'm feeling ready for the evening crash. Hopefully the weather will cooperate, there are two brand new caches within 5 miles of our house, so I want to get out there and get 'em! Grandma is here until Monday morning, so if she doesn't want to come maybe she can take Jessie somewhere. Oh, speaking of the Jessie again, she is still healing from her yellow jacket stings, the antibiotics that our doctor put her on have worked wonders on the infections. This is a good thing... if they still looked like they did 2 entries ago, she'd be in the hospital on an IV. Hurrah for antibiotics! She's still a little geocaching gun shy... I think she'll be reluctant to go until the fall, when things cool down and bees are slumbering.

Slumber. Sounds good to me.