Yo! I missed you all. I had to come and tell you all about my birthday weekend as it was truly one for the record books to remember. It was perfect! However, you know there’s always something juicy behind the scenes that happens before the fun begins. Grab some coffee or an extra mug as I give you the tea.
Twas the week of my birthday and I was getting excited. I confirmed all of the plans with my event planner, finished up some last minute shopping, and all guests were locked in ready to travel. At the start of the week, my parents called expressing that my brother was planning to take the Greyhound bus to my house for the week so that he could attend the party and head back to our hometown immediately following. We stayed up late that night finding the best bus option and had him all set to hop on the 7:20am bus. The downside of his travel is that he broke his cellphone and misplaced his ID shortly before leaving so he was what we call “riding dirty”. He was slated to arrive at 2:45pm later that day in the next city over from where I live. I arrive to the bus center to pick him up, which is not a bus center at all but a bus stop with benches where busses loop around form drop-off and pickup around the town. I drive around for about 45 min with no sign of him. I even get out of the car to ensure I get a closer look but quickly walked back to the car as I had a skirt on and was starting to get some sketchy looks from some guys that were lounging around there. Worry starts to set in. Mike even gets off work 2 hours later and circles around again to see if he may have walked somewhere and headed back to the stop. Still no sign of him. At this point, we are all panicking as my parents called Greyhound and they confirmed that he indeed “scanned his ticket” upon getting on the bus. None of us were able to sleep the entire night and having to put on a smile for work was tough the next day. As soon as 7:20am hits the next morning, my parents contact the police department in the state that my brother was departing from to submit a missing persons report. A part of my mind begins to think of what the rest of the week would look like with sad news of my brother while the other half of my brain is like “you and your brother share the same birthday and you know he’s ok from sibling intuition”. My parents would call me like every half hour asking if any updates as I found myself attempting to submit a missing persons report in California as well and called around to several hospitals and correctional facilities to rule out every possibility. I even created a flyer that I was planning to post to social media in his search. While on the phone with my stepfather, I was 2.5 seconds away from posting the flyer when my stepfather goes “hold on…this is your brother texting me”. We all get excited with so many thoughts and emotions. He simply missed the bus and just now got around to informing someone. (sigh) OK, now let the party plans commence.
On my actual birthday, a day before all of the festivities, I have a telehealth appointment with a specialist that I’ve been waiting to follow-up with all month long as we interpret my lab results. She reviews my labs that are picture perfect except for this one rare lab that she tested me for and reveals this mystery diagnosis that I’ll talk about in a future post. Just know that I’m ok, no big deal at this time as long as I remain my healthy self and labs continue to look excellent annually. I teased her by saying “wow what a birthday gift. Welcome to the new decade”. She looks at my record and said “oh that’s right, today is your birthday. Happy birthday! You’ll be fine.” Mariah & I go to get our nails done before dinner. The first place we went to we walked in and walked right back out because toenail clippings were on the spa chairs and grossed us out. The second place was much better and the staff were nice. The only odd part is when they offered nail design but only one person can do designs and they were not really trained to do so. I’m usually not picky at all but just wanted something special for my birthday. Since they couldn’t do anything spectacular, I asked for a few palm trees on my nails to commemorate my Malibu Barbie theme. To be nice, I’ll just say that my palm trees turned out more like coniferous trees. But I digress.
The next day is the first kickoff to the party weekend. Many of our guests are coming in town and we are headed down to the Pacific Palisades to our rental property where we will be lodging for the wkd and the party will be held. Mike requested a 15-passenger van from the local rental car agency and they “guarantee” that it’ll be ready on the date/time desired. Well the date/time arrived and they hit us with “well, what had happened was…” to which we had to settle for a standard SUV that we had to load with all of our luggage, large containers of party stuff, and kids, drive to another car rental agency 2 towns over to unload everything and everyone and reload to the 15-passenger van. To add on to it, the seats didn’t fold down so we had some fun playing musical bags and containers to make everything fit. One last inspection of the outside of the vehicle and I notice that the tags on the license plate say “8/2023”. I call attention to the agent saying “sir today is September 1st, will those tags be an issue?”. He shares that he didn’t realize the tags were out of date and gave us a “pass” to carry with us in case we encounter authorities. After getting a good workout in, we were finally ready to drive over an hour down to our destination where we unloaded everything, changed quickly, and headed back out for the evening’s activities. The evening definitely made up for this week’s mishaps. We had everyone meet at the traveler’s hotel where a charter bus awaited so we could go on a Hollywood bus tour. It was super fun with tunes, Mike on the microphone like a tour guide, getting off to take pictures, and ending the first leg of the tour at the Hard Rock Café where we treated guests to dinner. To our surprise, Michael Bolton was in the building. We could only see him though in a semi-hidden booth as we peeked around like spies lol.
With my party theme being Barbie, many people probably thought I planned my party after hearing about the movie this year. Wrong! I’ve been planning this party for an entire year and thought of the theme about 2 years ago when I discovered that Mariah and I would be hitting milestones the same year. And being in California, I had nothing to worry about when it comes to weather right? Wrong! First, the week before was a whole rare ordeal with Hurricane Hillary Banks, ok just Tropical Storm Hilary but still. Next, guess what’s on the forecast for this Saturday, rain. Say what? My party is based in the backyard with a pool and it’s raining? Are you serious? Well, on my way to get my makeup done that morning, I say my morning prayers and send a special one asking God to please just give me a few dry hours outside to enjoy my party. At this time, it’s a little after 10am. My party starts at 3pm. I get back to the house around 12:45pm and start to get ready. My event planner beforehand told me to not peek outside until the party starts for the element of surprise so I’m just praying it all looks nice. We coordinated transportation so that most travelers would arrive right on time. I hear music and everyone is downstairs at 3pm. I have the music setup so that Mariah and I can make an entrance around 3:15pm. Around 3:10pm I grab Mariah and head out to the upper balcony. As I look out, the sun is beaming on me and the rain has stopped. I scream “Thank you God! You always come through for your girl. He may not come when you want him but He’s right on time.” And my event planner did not disappoint. Everything from the décor to the food to the dessert was top tier. The only hiccup we had was the music connection during one of the games because the wi-fi connection was interfering but we got it back up and danced all the calories we gained back off lol. I had the playlist setup to where it began with 2010 and went backwards through the decades ending in a Michael Jackson song released the year I was born. Mariah had such fun connected with old friends and laughing with new friends and my heart was full from all of the love I felt with being able to spend time with friends and family and celebrate my dream birthday. The following day we hung out at the beach where we played volleyball and dipped in the water and Monday was back at our house to enjoy some BBQ and binge watch Bel-Air with my parents & aunts. So in summary, we had a ball. Here are a few pics from the party and from our Barbie Birthday photoshoot. The rest of the pics...well...you had to be there (wink).
Barbie beach photoshoot by: LeahRaePhotography
Party photos by: Yashua A. Khan (Yak productions)
Event planning/design by: Cairo'sCustomEvents
Delicious dishes by: Chef Shantai
Barbie 2-tier cake by: Brees' Cakes
With love (Bye Barbie!),
Yo! Mama Mesh
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