My husband turned 40! How did we get this old, this quickly? It has bothered him more than I thought it would. He would have been quite content to let it pass with little fanfare, however I have endeavored to make it as eventful as possible considering we are so far away from the friends and family that could truly make a birthday roast memorable. Our four years in Indiana just haven't provided enough fodder. No one has set his shoes on fire, he hasn't gotten his foot stuck in any stadium seats and he hasn't spilt beverages on his family. He has run out of gas twice, and his shirt tail was untucked during our Christmas service, but those alone are not really enough for a good roast. Besides, people only say nice things about their pastor, everyone knows that!

We did try to add to the festivities with some exciting birthday gifts. I suprised him with "The Magic Bullet", a wonderful little blender thingey that he saw on an infomercial on TV and liked enough to wake me from a nap to see. There will be many smoothies and much salsa in our future. Personally I am all for anything that entices someone else to cook! I attempted to make a delicious birthday meal for him, but alas, things didn't go quite as planned. My meatloaf,oddly enough, was not completely cooked when we sliced into it, so I had to put it back in the oven and ended up serving it at the end of the meal when no one was really hungry anymore. It kind of fell apart too, so it looked more like some sort of goulash or something, but it tasted okay. I tried to get a little fancy with a new recipe, but I should know by now to stick to the old, but acceptably tasty recipe.

Tomorrow we are off to Missouri for a week. My folks are flying into St. Louis and we are meeting up in Branson. With Brittany off to college before long, we are relishing our family time. I'm looking forward to much relaxation. There is an outlet mall there, so I think I'll refresh with a bit of retail therapy. Jeff will be packing up the car tonight, half the trunk for Brittany's luggage and the other half for everything else. Fortunately, we discovered we will have laundry facilities, so she pared down a bit. The boy's very carefully and meticulously packed the PS2, so that was a big help to me. I have become the luggage-pile nazi. No one dares remove anything from my ready-to-go pile. There is nothing worse than checking an item off your list, only to find it's been tampered with. Okay, I suppose there are many things worse than this, but as far as packing goes, this is pretty high up there. Between the tennis rackets, golf clubs, scrapbooking gear, and of course, Brittany's luggage, one might think we were traveling for at least a month or two.

Christian and I are off to the Pine-Wood Derby this morning. Jeff had a regional meeting to attend, so I am temping in the pit-crew in his absence. We hope the "Silver Monkey" will turn in a respectable performance. (An update: We were not very speedy, but we looked good!)

I will endeavor to return from vacation with many interesting things to tell you all. TTFN!