My Ralph

Geral used to call her Daddy, "My Ralph". I would correct her and say, "No, he's your daddy, he's my Ralph". Saturday was Ralph's birthday and he is officially half way to really old. To celebrate I planned a fun romantic evening together and I told him about what I had planned. A viewing of "It's a Wonderful Life" on the big screen, followed by dinner and a walk around the temple to see the lights. He agreed that it would be a fun evening and then reminded me that it was the same night as the ward Christmas party. Sigh! At least he knew I planned something more personal.

We did get a little alone time together on his birthday because Ralph accompanied me to Costco when I went to get some groceries and supplies for his birthday dinner. Of course as we pulled into the parking lot I questioned our sanity. Costco on a Saturday? In December? That's okay, we got in, got the stuff we needed and got out. It wasn't as much fun as when you can just wander around and look at stuff but it also meant that we didn't find extra items to spend money on. We also needed to get back home so we could have dinner before the ward event.

We saved cake and presents for after the party. Ralph is very hard to shop for because even if I do have a good idea (I have a lot of those), I have trouble actually getting him stuff he would be excited about without his input. For this reason he got stuck receiving a new white shirt (something he needed but hardly gets excited about). Of course it would have been nice if his wife had remembered what size he wears. What? We have only been married for 16 years, that is hardly enough time to know everything about him. To make up for the dullness of a plain white shirt that won't even fit, he also got 3 containers of dutch licorice. Now that he can get excited about. I noticed that the candy is no longer on the kitchen counter which means it must have made its way to his office this morning.

Happy Birthday Ralph!