Mark's birthday

We celebrated Mark's 29th birthday yesterday. It was a wonderful day!! We both took the day off work (partly because he leaves on Saturday for a 2 week business trip to Taiwan so we wanted to maximize our time together). In the morning, we ate breakfast, drank coffee, cuddled on the couch, and enjoyed a morning with no agenda. We had lunch at a little cafe using a gift certificate our friend Marla got us as a wedding gift, (Thanks Mar!), made all 3 bank stops, enjoyed birthday celebration afternoon massages at GiGi's salon & spa, ate a brownie from Elephants Deli, dinner at Benihana's and an all around wonderful day!!

While at dinner I gave Mark his birthday gift, an appointment to get eye surgery on the 1st of November. He was so surprised that he hardly knew what to say. I've learned something from Mark about gifts, lie, lie, lie!! We have a rule that we cannot lie to each other unless it's for the sake of a special occasion. So every time Mark had mentioned a desire for eye surgery in the past 5 months, I'd tell him how we couldn't afford it, wasn't in the budget, etc., when I had been planning it all along. I was so convincing that he honestly thought we couldn't make it happen. He laughed when he realized how well I had played off the letter he'd gotten from the eye place a couple of weeks ago confirming his appointment. - He hadn't opened the envelope by the time I came home so I quickly opened it and hid all the important information just leaving the brochure and then gave him a hard time about looking into it or getting on some mailing list when we couldn't afford it yet. I "fake" threw the envelope and brochure away (after asking him), but kept the brochure to scrapbook later. - He had NO idea, it was wonderful!!

Now we are trying NOT to think about how we have Mark's trip looming before us and only a few more evenings to enjoy together before he's gone. I've decided that pretty much everything can wait until after he's gone so I can enjoy our last few days together.

On a separate note, I've been reading through some of the Old Testament, and just finished 1 & 2 Samuel. I read 1 Kings chapter 1 today and was surprised to read that king Solomon was the son of David and Bathsheba (the woman he had an affair with while her husband was off at battle and later had her husband killed when he realized he got her pregnant). As a consequence, God killed off the little one they had born in sin and after David repented, God gave them another baby. I don't remember if the name of that child was mentioned but I feel a bit silly for not ever knowing that Solomon was the son of David and Bathsheba. I honestly thought the account of the Bathsheba story was just a random one and didn't realize how much it tied into the history. That's what I like about reading the OT, I always find the connections to the stories I've always heard that I never knew were connected.