The Next Thirty Years

Yes, I am now thirty. Which if you asked me a few years ago I would have said is so old. However, I don’t feel as old as some younger than me think I should. I actually feel young. I am sure that it is because I have celebrated thirty already with several of my friends, but I also think it is because of Zachary. When you get to play pirates, eat pretend food, draw on the sidewalk, and make forts without people looking at you like your crazy you really feel like a kid again. I am doing all the things I used to love to do as a kid at the age of thirty. It could only be better if I could get paid to do it all day long so I didn’t have to go to work.
Matt threw me a surprise birthday party and I probably would not have had any clue that it was going to happen if he had not acted so weird a few weeks before. Matt is a bad liar and when he started to get paranoid about things without a good reason, I felt like something was up. He yelled at me for picking up the phone to call someone. I didn’t know that he was already on it. He also wouldn’t let me touch his cell phone. On the other hand, my sisters are the best liars on earth. I had no idea that the party was going to happen when they drove me up to the house that night. In fact, my sister, Autumn, had me convinced she was leaving right after she said good-bye to Matt. Little did I know that when I thought she was talking to her husband on the phone she was actually talking to Matt. I had a great time at the party even though I was so full I could not eat any of the food that was there. Matt had planned for way more food than we needed. Thanks to everyone who came and helped me celebrate.
My first thirty years had ups and downs but I don’t think I would change anything because like it or not without the downs I would not have all of the things I have today. However, like the song says,” I plan to do it better in my next thirty years.”

Trains anyone?

Zachary has a real fascination and love of trains. Because of this I think he is going to look forward to Christmas time as much as Matt and I. Matt got a nice train, when he was younger, and this year we decided to put it out under the Christmas tree. We had avoided this in the past because of the dogs but Matt really wanted to do it this year so I said yes. You have to let them win every once in a while. LOL. I didn’t know a kid could enjoy watching a train go around in a circle so much. The first night, after getting the tree up, Zachary sat in Matt’s lap and watched the train for around 45 minutes. We had to tell him that the train was tired and needed to go night-night before he would let Matt turn it off.
After that he wanted to sit and watch the train at least once a night. I thought for sure we were going to have to watch him every minute around the train because he would try and pick it up while it was running. But Matt only had to tell him that first time not to touch it. When he wanted to watch it Zach would just yell, “TRAIN!,” run up to the tree, and sit down next to it in the spot that Matt and him sat that first night. He would then wait for you to turn it on for him so he could go, “choo, choo” and watch it go around.
Both of our parents had trains around their trees too and he was just as fascinated with those ones, although not as good about not touching them. But the Grandparents are really soft when it comes to Zachary and pretty much let him do what he wants.
Zachary liked the train and the Christmas lights so much that Matt and I kept them up until almost the second weekend in January. In the past they have always come down before we go back to work, after New Years, but we knew how sad he was going to be so we left them up. Zachary was so sad the day that we took the tree down and the train went away. For a few days afterward he even ran into our front room looking for his train. Luckily, Santa brought him a Thomas train for being such a good boy otherwise I would be afraid of withdrawals.