Happy Birthday! Turning 27 in Hawaii

Yesterday, I received some tragic news about a member of my extended family. It was a sobering moment, during which I thought to myself, a post about all the fun and frivolity of my 27th birthday now seems so insignificant. But during a long drive home from our road trip — post on that coming up — I thought about how lucky I am to be living this life. So though I know there are things in life more important than birthday cake, I also know that lives are meant to be cherished. And this particular birthday reinforced just how lucky I am to have special people in my life.

I used to be the girl that sent out her own Evite — remember those? — about celebrating her birthday at some raging Chicago club. Well, gone are those days. It’s a feat to even get me into a club now. These days, I’d much rather spend time with my closest friends over a delicious meal and call it a day.

But I also had a light bulb moment when I realized: I understand celebrating special moments like a wedding or graduation, but why celebrate the day I was born? What kind of accomplishment is that? So I didn’t want to make a big deal of my birthday this year. I mean, I’m living in Hawaii, isn’t that a birthday celebration in and of itself?

Apparently, Eaman had other ideas.

Unbeknownst to me, with help from Pratt and Craig, he had been planning a surprise birthday party for me since mid-March. They hatched a plan to get me ready for an ordinary day at the beach last Saturday, but when we stopped at Pratt’s apartment for a hot second, I got my extraordinary surprise!

I knew Eaman was up to something because he had been texting incessantly as of late — and he hates, I mean, hates texting. But I figured it’d happen this weekend, just a couple days after my actual birthday. I was so caught off guard that when I saw the above “happy birthday” sign hanging in Pratt and Craig’s living room, I even remarked, “Did you guys have a birthday party here recently or something?”

Sharp, I am not.

The surprise involved mango cake (yum!), cookies, a lei, a sick new surf hat c/o Pratt and Craig and tubing out to Popoia a.k.a. Flat Island. We pumped air into nearly a dozen tubes and drove out to Kailua, where we then floated with ease paddled intensely with flip-flops in our hands to get to the limestone rock island.

Thanks to Naomi, who snapped some pictures while we were out on the water:

Eaman and me:

Doug’s a trooper and took the awkward-size pirate ship tube that I was supposed to ride:

Once we got to Flat Island, we walked around to this natural pool, where we drank beer and shivered — it was cloudy and chilly!

Once we got back to Honolulu, we BBQed at P&C’s apartment complex, which was the perfect end to such an outdoorsy day. There are few things finer in life than a nicely charred hot dog eaten in the sea-salted air. All in all though, I was so deeply touched that all these people went out of their way to plan and be a part of a fun day in my name. I’ve planned a few surprises for my friends, and I love that rush of the intrigue and sneaking around, but I also thought to myself, “All this for moi?” It was just so nice. Again, I’m a very lucky girl.

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For my actual birthday this past Thursday, I was off from work after a string of 6am shifts, so I told Eaman I just wanted to CHILL. That meant brunch at Sweet E’s Cafe…

… beach time at Kaimana…

…pizza at J.J. Dolan’s (awesome pizza can be found in Honolulu!)…

(note the “Joisey, City, NJ” sign)

…and ice cream at Bubbies. Mochi ice cream here:

and brownie a la mode here because I don’t think I’ve had a birthday in the last 7 years where I haven’t had this dessert.

The menu at Bubbies:

But perhaps the greatest gift of my birthday was that the public buses we took to get around — to Sweet’s E’s, the beach, pizza and ice cream — were on time. If you’ve used Honolulu’s public transit system, then you know how nightmarishly late the buses can be. (We once waited 50 minutes!!!!) I feel like I’ve chilled out quite a bit since traveling, but these buses bring out my New York City rage. Anger, dirty looks and lots of cursing.

And yet, we were shocked to catch one bus after another — even in the dicey nighttime hour — on time. So thank you TheBus, for making this journey into year 27 oh so smooth.