Happy Birthday, Julene!

Julene's endured yet another birthday this week. It seemed that there were a lot of things that were in the way of preparing a birthday celebration for Julene: I was attending a seminar on health law at the Palazzo Hotel, I was trying to finish my rehabilitation of the yard at our old house, I needed to put together a talk for Sunday, the kids had tons of homework, Josh had scouts, etc. In other words, just a normal week at the Ballards.

On Julene's birthday, I was able to go shopping for a present for her during a break at the seminar. After the seminar I had to return to the office to get a few things in the out box. When I left the office, I made my way to a few stores to round up a some cards for the kids to give to Julene, candles, an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins, and some flowers.

One of the true pleasures was seeing how excited the kids were to write on birthday cards for Mommy. They were sneaking around, trying not to let her know that they were working on cards for her. As is evident from the picture above, Angelina was especially thrilled to be able to give Mommy a card.

The payoff came as Julene was brought to tears with the surprise of her little birthday party. Julene, who had been somewhat miffed with me all day, was completely caught off guard by this celebration, which made it so satisfying to know that she was truly touched.