I turned 40 last month.

When I type that out it seems much more serious than I had anticipated. I was not very worried about turning 40 and there wasn’t much to-do (at least, not from me!) about it this year. I was looking forward to my birthday, actually. I knew it was a “big one” as far as milestones go and, to be quite honest, I was just hoping to get a nice gift. Little did I know that Robyn was planning something behind my back for the last few months. Every time it came up, she would just say something like “So, what do YOU want to do?” or “I am so bad. I don’t have anything planned.” All the while, I was telling myself that it was no big deal – just another year. But inside, I think I was hoping that there were at least some plans brewing. Oh, she was quite sneaky!

Thinking back on the whole thing, I should have known something was up because there was a “cluster” of unusual happenings. The Saturday before my birthday Robyn was (supposedly) scheduled to work. On those days, my mother-in-law and Harvey come to watch our kids and I take one of their cars to class while Robyn takes our car to work. On that Saturday, Harvey wasn’t coming because he had “something to do” so Alise came alone and I took her car to class. We had a nice training session with a rare Saturday appearance by Jason and Doug who usually do not attend on weekends – but they said that they had to leave a little early from class to do something later in the day. After training I hung out and chatted with Max and Sal and then went to Quick Chek to get a drink. I didn’t rush home by any means. After I pulled into our empty driveway Chloe and Gabriel were trying to get my attention by shouting out of our windows to me. I just waved and grabbed my stuff and got the mail. It was a rainy, dreary Saturday and I wasn’t looking forward to being stuck in the house of the rest of the weekend. Walking inside and putting my training stuff away, the kids were still trying to get my attention and I noticed that Harvey’s coat, hat and shoes were in our living room but I didn’t think much about it because Alise had mentioned that they were thinking of going to Atlantic City later in the day to see his nephew’s band perform. I assumed that he had come by our place to pick her up in order to save time but I didn’t think to ask where his car was.

As I walked up the stairs, Chloe was saying “Daddy, come up! Come up! We have something to show you!”

As I got near the top of the stairs I could see some kind of decoration on the little table between our chairs and I began to think that something was going on.

A little further and I saw a camera pointing up over the back of one of the chairs and I knew it was Jay and that I would turn to see others there too.

So, just watch the video and see for yourself:

From my face, you can probably see that I was pretty surprised.

Okay, now I know something is going on....

Robyn did an excellent job of keeping things under wraps until the party. This is something I did not think she would be able to do without the kids knowing and with all the other stuff she does so it really contributed to me not expecting anything on that day. Great job, babe! I had a really fun time at the party and was happy to see so many people there including Jason and Doug who had, of course, left class early to beat me home for the surprise!

In addition to being a great day of fun this was an interesting lesson in how our minds can work to fill in the blanks of unusual circumstances to create order from random changes to our environment. Or maybe I just unconsciously pushed these little clues out of the way because I really was hoping for a party? It’s hard to say but I was definitely unaware of all the planning and scheming going on around me. It’s a good thing that it was all being done by people who love me!

40 and Still Rockin'