What I did on my summer vacation, Part 3

Today was my birthday and traditionally, well, let's just say I have learned to avoid them when I can. Something about expectaions and disappointments and I would just rather not go there. So with that said, this happened to be a pretty good birthday as they go.

Some of us got up before dawn and wandered down to the beach to watch the sun come up. Now please keep in mind that I am not a morning person and I can be a little ADD from time to time and the combination was a little difficult to deal with. I really had every intention of spending some real quality time with God, walking on the beach, talking and sharing.... but like I said, it was morning and very early at that. I mean it was the crack of dawn. Yeah it was pretty and the sea gulls, I guess added to the ambiance. Even the sand crabs are a wonder of God's creation. But I do not appreciate the sand crabs scurrying across my toes, or hundreds of seagulls deciding I might possibly have food and crowding me. It was a little "off putting"! And I didn't even mention all the cruise ships leaving port! My quiet time was not exactly what I had planned. My expectation was to connect with God in a quiet tranquil moment in His creation. I connected with Him in a moment of panic because of His creation. It's that whole expectation thing.

So the day continues on and I get some time to talk with God back in the condo. Not what I had imagined, but truly, any time I get to spend talking with my Creator is always a positive thing. Everyone else went back to sleep so I had my alone time. I even got to start a new book Pastor Wes recommended to me called "The Dip" by Seth Godin. Pretty interesting so far.

The family finally got up and moving by noon and we started making plans for what to do for dinner. We decided on Medieval Times.

As I started to look for what I was going to wear, I realized that the shirt I had planned on wearing (my favorite shirt) was accidently left at home. The temptation was to play the blame game (remember the whole disappointment thing?) and get really moody, but I really did not want to go there. Unfortunately, I am not that mature and were it not for the intervening of the Holy Spirit in my heart, that is exactly what I would have done. Instead I had another talk with God. We decided on another shirt and set off to the dinner theater an hour away (it was 4pm).

We got there in plenty of time, we were first in line by about 3 minutes and had fun talking to the other folks in line.

We got silly in the photo shop and had our pictures taken. Face Lift anyone?

Dinner was excellent, the show was fun and exciting, the Falconer was really nice and told us all about how he got into the field of being a licenced falconer.

We stuck around and chatted with some of the cast afterwards and found out a lot about what it is like to work for one of these places. It was really great connecting with theater folk again. It brought back a lot of really great memories.

Of course the girls then started making plans to move to Florida and work at one of the dinner theaters and have other grand adventures. How can you not smile when your kids start dreaming?

All in all it ended up being quite a lovely birthday, even if it wasn't what I had expected. Sometimes it is nice to be surprised.

Here are some pictures of the day. Bruce and I as Shrek and Fiona and a couple of the Knights.