My husband celebrated a birthday near the beginning of the month, that somehow, as Howerton birthday often do, extended into a week of revelry.
On his actual birthday, we celebrated at a local restaurant with Mark’s parents. Mark shares a birthday with his dad, and his sister-in-law, and my nephew. Big day in our family.
That evening we went out dancing with friends. We were sweaty and old and ridiculous and it was so. much. fun.
The next night, Mark convinced (begged) several of his friends to join him at his hot yoga studio. Over the past year, he has become a devotee at Core Power, and he is always trying to convert his friends. If this doesn’t prove their love I don’t know what does.
One would think that might be enough in the way of birthday festivities, but every year we have a tradition of going to a resort in the desert with several of our friends for Mark’s birthday, too. And we weren’t about to forego it this year. (Nor would our kids ever let us.) So that weekend, we headed out.
It is ridiculously hot there in August, so we take lots of measure to keep cool. Some involving child labor.
DIY misters. You can pin that if you want.
We keep it pretty low-brow on this trip. Case in point: I had to pick my friend Heather up from the airport and due to an incident involving leaving my room key at the pool and just not caring, I picked her up wearing nothing but a wet bathing suit and a trucker hat. I think she was really impressed.
It’s cool though. Five minutes in and I had her eating non-Paleo chips and drinking from a red solo cup.
We’ve been doing this trip for years with the same group of people, but this year we added some new friends to the mix. I was a bit apprehensive what it would be like . . . mixing real life friends with internet friends! But everyone clicked and we had a great time.
Every evening we took a stroll on the nearby golf course to watch the sunset and let the kids run around.
And do weird yoga moves.
We may have let them play in the sprinklers a bit, too.
There was also some golf, though I was not involved in this activity, because it involved waking up at the crack of dawn to beat the heat. No thank you. I choose sleep.
I managed to not wash my hair for four days, which in my book is the measure of a good vacation.
The day after we got back from Indio, we had tickets to see the play Once with many of the same friends. So we had them over for dinner beforehand.
At dinner, Mark thanked everyone for coming over for his birthday. And everyone rolled their eyes in unison.
Side note: Once the Musical? SO GOOD.
Finally, over a week later, my husband convinced me to go to hot yoga with him because there was a live band/drum circle during class. Soon after, he posted this on instagram:
So this post serves to declare: Mark Howerton, your birthday week is officially OVER.
