Damien's birthday part one (or Damien's bounty)

So as I mentioned in yesterday's post, Damien turned 29, well, yesterday. And as I also mentioned, and many of you probably don't want to hear (read) me mention again is that I had a snow day and didn't have to go to work yesterday. But, it was a very productive day and I ended up pulling off a pretty good birthday surprise for Damien. It all started Tuesday when I was racking my brain as I had yet to purchase a single gift for him. I am sometimes a really good gift giver and other times, I either end up super uncreative or I have these really lofty ideas last minute which sometimes are just to impossible to pull off. Anyways, I had a few ideas for Damien and so I headed with a friend to Barnes and Noble. I knew I wanted to get him a new vegetarian cook book, an Indian cookbook, possibly a few Dwell magazines. All of these I found no problem and I also picked up a copy of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox (a. because I love Roald Dahl and b. because we love Wes Anderson and can't wait to see the movie!), and 3 moleskine journals. Then it was off to Marshall's for a few more books, some nice coffee, and a stainless steel water bottle. I was feeling good about the gifts but wasn't sure how to present them. I am also not much of a wrapper as I find it to be wasteful (oh, my poor unborn children.) So I went to bed (somewhat)-satisfied.

Then the phone rang at 5:30am. No school today. That opened up a whole new realm of possibilities and I realized while at my mother's that a great gift and great way to present my gifts would be to surprise Damien by getting and decorating our Christmas tree. So the next 4 hours consisted of me getting the tree, in the middle of a snow/rain storm, getting my teenage neighbor to carry it in the house for me, electrocuting myself, running out for new lights (and compromising on colored lights just for him!) and putting on the final touches before he made it home. I had his gifts under the tree waiting for him (including all the Irish candy I could find at the local grocery store). I have to say, though, that he absolutely loved it and loved all of his gifts. We had a wonderful night, staying in and eating great vegetarian food and drinking the wine that we had made as gifts for our wedding. We ended up passing on watching a movie; nothing was grabbing our interest.

So here is our evening in photos. I am sure you will be able to tell which ones are his and which ones I took! I swear the ones he took of his gifts could be in a magazine.

I will have part two of Damien's birthday up tomorrow, including my self-style shots from today!

Don't forget to check out my giveaway!!!! You have until Monday at midnight to enter.