Displaced Beachbums

Thoroughly enjoyed my birthday yesterday.  Since we feel like we’re living in the days of wine and roses here in London,  John got real wine (my favorite: Chateauneuf-du-Pape) and red roses for me:

If you squint and look very closely at the photo, those are tickets from Logan to “Billy Elliott” at the Victoria Palace Theater ~ which I can’t rave enough about.  I’m in awe of the actors since it’s a demanding musical but especially the kids.  The amount of talent is amazing.  Loved the story line, the cast enthusiasm, the songs, the dances and, on the practical side, it was 15 minutes door to door (on the tube).  Did I mention I love living in London?!

What made this year even more special is I usually don’t celebrate much for the “big day”  At first,  it was because my dad died on my 25th birthday. For years, I didn’t celebrate at all.  But once Logan was old enough to understand birthdays, she’s made it her mission to make sure I enjoyed mine.  But even with the best of intentions, events sometime overtake the day. Last year, in early September, we had two tropical storms and an earthquake hit the Northern Virginia area, causing water to seep into our basement.  We decided to waterproof it completely which meant on my birthday, I was listening to the sound of jack hammers tearing up the basement floor:

This year, I only had sweet sounds to listen to and my favorite was John and Logan singing “Happy Birthday” while I blew out the candles on my chocolate macaroons (goodbye cupcakes, hello macaroons) ~ doesn’t get better than that.

Now about the age thing, I’ve decided to start counting backwards!!