Candy Ribbons
02-06-2001,

Candy Ribbons...

February 6, 2001

Today is Sherry's 30th Birthday. Happy Birthday Sherry :) Phew, I am glad that her birthday is so soon after mine, since she loves using those few weeks to tease me constantly about being *older* than her. Somehow, I don't see less than a month as being all that older than her, but she still loves to rub it in. Now today, I am going to enjoy reminding her just how old she is!!!

We (Sherry and I) are going to go out to lunch together in a little bit. I am glad that she is off work today, and that we get this chance to do something together alone. She has been saying a lot lately how much she misses me, which at first I found strange, since we have been doing plenty together lately. But then I thought about it and realized that most of what we have been doing together, we have been doing with Stephen and Chuck and/or Chrissy and June. We really haven't taken any *friend alone time* lately, and a special birthday lunch sounds like a good plan. She also has her second job interview with Allstate this afternoon, so she is going to wear the new outfit that she bought for the interview to lunch today to get my opinion. I bet it is beautiful. I actually had so wanted to buy her an outfit to wear today and take it to her over the weekend, but I never got the chance to do so, so I am glad that she was able to go out and get one.

The neat thing about my friendship with Sherry is the *history* that comes with it. I can still remember celebrating our 10th birthday together (we were in the double digits finally!!) our 13th (wow, teenagers at last), our 16th, 18th, 21st... and so on. It's nice to be able to say, "hey remember when..." to someone who was there, and does remember. One such memory came up a few weeks ago. I was asking Cory how they celebrated birthdays with friends when they were younger. For us, the big thing was candy ribbons. What we did was take long lengths of ribbon and cover them with candy, and they were then worn by the birthday girl around her neck. Candy ribbons were the thing. You spent days before your birthday wondering what your ribbon would look like... and the more ribbons you got, the better... I can't even count the number of ribbons I had made for friends in my teen years. Making them was almost as fun as getting them... almost... Cory didn't know what I was talking about, seems balloon bouquets were the special birthday treat for her friends and herself. I was so anxious to get home from work that night to call Sherry and talk about Candy ribbons. She laughed at me, of course, she is not as much of a reminiscer as I am... but it was still nice to know that she did remember, and that the memory meant as much to her.

We are going out this Saturday to celebrate Sherry's birthday. We are going to Medieval Times. We are all going, Sherry, Chuck, Chrissy, June, Stephen and I. It's going to be an awesome time. It is a theme restaurant, a medieval theme, obviously. They have actual horses in the ring, and tournaments and stuff... it's neat. Plus the meal is one that you could have had during those times, and without utensils, since they didn't use them then. I remember one time when we went to another one like this, a couple snuck in a fork... Oh my, they got busted by their *serving wench* with them, and not only was the forks confiscated, but the couple was *made fun of* the whole night. It was hysterical, I loved it. So when Sherry's sister, Margie, called us to suggest that we take our own silverware, I laughed so hard. Nope, not me... I will eat with my fingers thank you very much. Now Chrissy, she loves the idea... her exact words "woo hoo, I can finally just be myself". Ah the wisdom of the young! The girls are so excited that they are going with though. June calls it the *big castle place*. Everytime we pass it, she says... I wannnnnaaa go theeeerrrreee... so this is a good opportunity for her. It is a little expensive, so it is definitly a special occasion sorta treat. We even paid 12.00 more per person for their birthday package.. (it comes out to be 54.00/person now) which entitles us to a cake for Sherry, special programs, an annoucement during the show...we each get a picture with the King and Queen, and we get priority seating, in the first 2 rows. When we first heard how much more it was, we wondered if we should do it, but now I am glad we are... it will be worth it...After all, it is her 30th Birthday.

I am going to do my best to make this a very special birthday for her. I already got the stuff to make her a Candy ribbon to wear on Saturday, and I think that she will appreciate the sentiment. I also found the cutest picture frame for her... Hello Kitty... awwww, another awesome memory from our childhood that I will save for another entry. I also am getting her a new outfit... so I will have lots of stuff for her. I hope she loves it all...