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Because I gave her a 'birthday month' this year, threw her a party at our place in Costa Rica, and then had her actual birthday on the beach in Nicaragua, she felt the need to at least match that for my birthday this year, if not top it. Then when I surprised her with private Mexican cooking classes a couple weeks ago, it was on.
So it all started exactly a week before my birthday, I was to get the first surprise. As I did with her, she led me out of the house saying we were going somewhere but not telling me where. We walked oddly close to where I took her, when we stopped in front of this adorable run-down looking courtyard with little cabin/bachelor apartments all around. Cena walked up to a particular one, and a very swami looking middle-aged woman invited us in. We were getting massages. And not just any massage, an Ashiatsu barefoot massage.
It was wonderful. I walked back to the apartment feeling like I was walking on clouds in dreamland.
Have I also mentioned that she was completely determined to keep everything a surprise? Because of everyone jabbing at her that she can't keep secrets, she was dead set on having me be in the dark for everything. So for the week preceding my birthday days, she would be doing secret research on the computer, wander off for a couple hours at a time on secret errands, would have secret phone calls and mysterious emails. So as much as I loved the idea of the surprise, I was looking forward to ending the sneaking around and moratorium on questions because she didn't want to give anything away.
So the next of the surprises was the evening before my birthday on the 2nd. We left the house at 6pm and started walking North, which we've only gone once before. I figured we were going out for supper, but clearly not at your average tourist restaurant as we were walking farther away from everything.
At 6:30pm exactly we reach this enormous gated property with a lush garden and 19th century style lighting through the walkway to this large colonial era house, Casa mission. The first thing I noticed was the overwhelming amount of crosses on the wall. I kid you not, there had to have been at least 200 crosses.
I put 2 and 2 together and realized it was an old religious house for the priests and nuns coming over doing mission work in Mexico, converted in to a restaurant. Culture and supper, all in one stop. Not to mention the band that was playing an interesting set of traditional and modern instruments. One was like a cross between a stool and an xylophone.
When we got back home, we watched a couple short episodes of TV in the living room, and Cena wanted to watch another one in bed. I protested but finally gave in. She led me to the bedroom and I opened the door to find the entire room illuminated by candlelight and three different scented massage oils on the nightstand, because she "didn't know which one I would like best".
After a glorious massage, she confirmed to me that her plan for tomorrow (the 3rd) was going on rain or shine, so to be prepared...
Well when I woke up the morning of the 3rd, Cena was not there. Thinking she had decided to let me sleep in instead of up at 7:30am for her plan, I lazily laid there with my eyes closed slowly waking up. Until I realized that there was this wonderful mist spraying my legs. I opened my eyes to find it pouring down rain so hard it was raining inside the bedroom on to the bed. So I went out to the kitchen to find her at her computer at the table, with a wonderful little breakfast already laid out and waiting for the two of us. She had been up for over an hour already rescheduling everything until tomorrow. After having a week of blue skies and sun, the damn Cozumel rainy season had returned.
Nevertheless, I had an absolutely wonderful relaxed birthday. After breakfast she pulled out yet another surprise.
A beautiful handmade card filled with wonderful things, and Scrabble Twist! Essentially its scrabble but without the board and points. So it's all about finishing your pile of letters first. Because we've played scrabble a lot while travelling, but always with just the pouch of letters because you can't exactly travel with a board. I believe Cena's exact words after we read the rules were, "Take that Jasmin! Make fun of our Scrabble rules.."
Because it was pouring rain and we were inside all day, we decided to have a gourmet food day for my birthday. So we spent some time scouring recipes online for healthy cleanse recipes and finished with an italian theme. Cena went to the market, and got the missing ingredients for the day. For lunch we made a homemade chicken, onion, spinach and goat cheese pizza with an olive-oil and garlic base, with fresh basil and parsley, on top of a homemade gluten free pizza crust. For supper, a simple olive oil, garlic, basil, parsley, menthe, mung bean noodle pasta beside an aichiote marinaded grouper fish. omg. What an incredible food day.
But to top it all off, like she had planned the whole day at home, rain and all, she had prepared 14 coloured cards, each with a trait and something beautiful written on them to give to me at random intervals throughout the day.
Oh, and she played me happy birthday on the ukulele. Amazing. And all this was apparently just in waiting until the grand surprise tomorrow...
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