Going over the hill with a big fat smile on my face

In two hours and thirty nine minutes, I will be forty years old. I WILL BE OLD OLD OLD. I will be bonafide old with grey hair(s), wrinkles, and failing eyes. I will be so old that kids will call me Mrs. blabla automatically...out of respect. I will tell tales of my rascally youth that now happened many decades ago. I will use idioms at inappropriate times because I won't be able to keep up with the kids these days. I think I'm supposed to start wearing my pants above my belly button, so I'll go shopping for mom jeans. This is by far the most excited I've been for any birthday in my entire life. I'm giddy as a little school girl just thinking about how old I get to be!

Surprise Charly!

She doesn't know it, but I just booked Charly's first real adventure in this world. For the past couple of years I have been going to Coloma California for a white water rafting fundraiser that my friend puts on to fuel all the good research. I'm going to wait until the day before we leave to tell her. When she's heard me talking about it in past years, she would drop not so subtle hints like, "mommy, why can't IIIIIIIIII go?", or, "it sounds like so much fun, maybe one of these trips you could take me? maybe? mommmy?". Little does she know that in one short month, she'll be dining on peanuts while snuggled up in my traditional cross country tigger and pooh fleecy airplane blanket.
I can NOT wait to introduce her to the river and to show her how awesome my California friends are. More than anything, I can't wait to show that little girl how to have fun.