Happy Birthday Daddy!

Neal turned the big 3-0 this weekend so we did lots of celebrating! Neal and I got to spend a night out on Friday night with dinner and a movie while Meredith stayed the night with Gigi. Then she came home and we surprised Daddy with Chicken Express for lunch! We followed that up with a tradition I started with Neal 11 years ago (wow -that seems so crazy!) That was the first birthday we celebrated together and I was living in a dorm with no access to an oven to bake a cake, so I bought Hostess cupcakes and candles. The next few years I kept this up even when I made him a cake - it seemed that we officially celebrated on a day other than his actual birthday with the "real" cake, so the cupcakes were just a fun treat on the real day. We even had to spend a few birthdays apart - when I was in Austin and he was back here and when he went to Alaska for work the cupcakes were great because I was able to pack them up for him as a surprise to eat without me.

This year, Meredith got to fully enjoy this tradition and even helped Daddy blow out his candles while singing "Happy Dada, Happy Dada!"