Birthday Blessings...

Matt and I celebrate our birthdays a week apart in the cold month of January.  We all get some laughs out of this as both sides of our families already had A LOT of January birthdays and when we got married we added one more to each side!  (Maybe one day we will have some kid-os in January too!) 

Anyway, I am coming to grips with the fact that birthdays are just another day ticking past us in a busy world.  Sometimes, I wish birthdays as an adult were more special--like when we were kids with a party and special treatment and the whole shebang!  Besides a few phone calls and many facebook messages, it really was just like any other day. (Thank you for those messages and phone calls, by the way!)  I mean, if you have a job you still have to go to work, endure a commute, sit through meetings, etc...
it just isn't that exciting.

Still, I have a wonderful husband who kept saying..."I have something planned. Don't worry! It will be special."  So when I got home from externship on Tuesday, he had dinner mostly cooked and an ice cream cake waiting for me!  I consumed almost the whole thing in response to my uneventful day and in rebellion of my "gluten free diet".  It was lovely, aside from the fact that the # on top is not correct.  Matt said he knew it was wrong but he didn't want the cake to melt so he didn't go back to the store to fix it.  Oh well...I'll have them for his birthday next year!

Then, yesterday (Friday) he sent me some text messages indicating the time and place I was expected to arrive somewhere and that I would get further instructions upon my arrival.  All he told me was that it was something I wanted and NEEDED.  I had all kinds of ideas running through my head.  We have talked about going to a musical and West Side Story is in town?  He'd dropped hints about ball room dancing?!? But, then I found out I was going alone! What in the world?

I drove to his work and the gatekeeper handed me a note and Matt's GPS.  It said to go to the most recently found address in the GPS.  I drove down Elliot toward the Space Needle and turned up Mercer Street.  I crossed Highway 99 (phew!). I turned a couple times in there and found a spa when Betty Lou said "arriving at destination on right"--Banya 5, to be exact.  (Betty Lou is the GPS's name.) 

{EXCERPT FROM THEIR WEBSITE: Banya 5 is an urban spa and health facility offering a unique blend of old world wellness rituals in a friendly, contemporary environment. A series of relaxing dry and wet heat experiences coupled with exhilarating pool plunges produce a vivid circulatory experience with numerous mental and physical benefits. The experience is both personal and communal. It can be serene and detoxifying or invigorating, intense and rejuvenating. As a modern interpretation of old ideas, we are re-defining public bathing.} 

I was scheduled for an hour-long massage, but could enjoy the "heat experiences" and "pool plunges" if I wanted...I was not completely prepared for such activities (no wet suit on hand! and Betty Lou doesn't tell you what to wear!), so I slipped on the robe they gave me and read People Magazine while waiting for my masseur!  It's been tooooooo long since I have had a massage and it was divine!  Thank you, Matt!

His birthday is coming this week!  I have a few gifts for him!  Stay tooned!