There ain't nothing that says 40th birthday more than having to celebrate two weeks early on a Tuesday. Oh we had one hell of a time regardless because that's how we do. But what was months of Val mulling over a big 40th party quickly turned into something smaller much earlier in the month. Her priority was seeing her son come back home from being at sea in the Navy for most of the year and since his dates kept changing so did her party plans. But Anna and I weren't about to let her not do anything. Nope, not acceptable. Anna and Val got downtown early but I met up with them at High T shortly after 5 pm. We were a damn mess from the start as per usual. I tripped walking inside and got it on video (see below). Then we headed straight to the bar so the ladies could get some fun lil Christmasy cocktails. Anna and I tied Val's giant balloons to her barstool while our bartender got started doing her thang. During this time we were entertained with a very intimate magic show. There were squishy red balls and cards and our chins got closer to the floor with each trick he performed. Like how does he do it? Not only that but he (and the bartender) were having a slow night and were ever so gracious to take a million pictures of us being little goofballs together. He even gave us the best posing tips for the coveted rabbit hole shots. Anna was the only one who did it flawlessly. We moved to another table which meant Anna and I were back on birthday girl balloon duty. We untied the balloons and moved them with us. At some point one of them went flying to the ceiling. It was up so high Anna had to climb on a high top chair to grab the string while I held her legs steady. It's all about that teamwork. While gabbing about this and that Val just pulls out a wad of hair. A toupee? Nope, these are her clip in bangs. Never know when you might need them! One minute she was sans bangs and boom the next minute she had them and they blended pretty damn good. We left High T to go downstairs to One-Up. But first, we had to re-take our nutcracker photo. Got to get that shot! Of course we find out One-Up is closed. Rude. So Anna asked to go to Proper (where I went to a happy hour a few months back). We get there and we show our IDs like normal and we all kind of look around when the guy behind us tells the doorman to let us in. Like why wouldn't they let us in? We're cute, we're Christmas coordinated, and clearly it's Val's bday because you can't miss her with those balloons that we made her tie to her wrist. We quickly realized they "let us in" because there was a private event happening that we clearly were not a part of. But we just rolled right on through. We went to the bar and Anna got a drink. Then we scouted out a good place to sit and the minute we got comfy we realized it was reserved. We headed onto the patio even though it's more of one of those outside/inside situations thanks to the garage door being open. And let me tell you it was a COLD night. We're talking 50s and windy which Anna and I loved even through our little chattering teeth. Poor Val kept getting up to stand next to the electric fireplace. Once Anna was done with her drink it was time to go. We walked a few blocks back to my car but before we got there we had to stop at the DTO sign where a nice man took our photo. And even though it didn't turn out great I still think it's really cool. We also took photos in front of the decor outside of City Hall. This is when Val was getting whiney about the cold. And that was that - straight to the car to get the birthday girl warmed up! Another successful AVA outing.
