Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been jealous of those with summer birthdays. My birthday falls on January 10, which is about 3 weeks after Christmas, right after the start of New Years’ resolutions, and, at least when I was growing up in Pennsylvania, the dead of winter. Summer birthdays always meant great fun with pool parties, ice cream cake, and staying up late because there was not school the next day.

So, we try to take advantage of Dave’s June 30 birthday by doing something fun every year. One year we took a trip to Colorado and did some hiking, brewery touring/tasting, and sightseeing. Since we’ve been in our current house, we’ve thrown a party the last couple of summers.

This year, Dave wanted a double-tap kegerator for his birthday. I did quite a bit of research online and found the kegerator that I thought would work best and I ordered it. It arrived and he got it set up with a few days to spare before the party. One of the taps works with a commercial style keg (any beer you would normally drink on tap at a bar), and one of the taps works with a homebrew keg. Dave does some homebrewing, so this will work great, as it is much easier to keg than bottle brewed beer and it keeps the beer nice and cold without taking up space in the refrigerator. He went and picked up a keg of St. Arnold’s Weedwacker, which is one of our favorite local brews, and got everything ready to go.

Kegerator w/St. Arnolds Weedwacker beer

It was necessary this year to minimize the amount of work that I had to do for the party as my energy level is pretty limited right now, so we selected easy foods such as chips and salsa, grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, some fruit, and of course homemade birthday cakes. I baked the cakes, set the stuff out, and then decided to just relax and let everyone fend for themselves for the rest of the night. This was not easy for me to do, as I have a hard time sitting still at my own house. Even when home alone, my mind is usually racing with tasks I should accomplish. It gets worse when people are over and I tend to mentally obsess over things like refilling food and drinks, getting more chairs, music, toilet paper in the bathroom, and on and on. I made a conscious decision NOT to let myself do it, found a pool float, and spent most of the night in the pool.

Where I spent most of the party

And guess what? It all worked itself out just fine. We have some wonderful friends who took charge of getting condiments out, cutting up tomatoes and onion, and serving the cakes. Dave did a great job with the grilling and serving, and everyone got up and got their own drink when they wanted refills. It was a good learning experience for me to just relax and let things be and let other people help me. I had a great time, probably even more so than any other party we’ve had, which I didn’t expect at 32 weeks pregnant!

Birthday cards

Dave had a truly enjoyable birthday celebration, and we are very grateful to the wonderful friends, neighbors, kids, and dogs who came to have fun with us!

Dave got some great looking growlers full of beer as a birthday gift from some of our friends.

One of Dave’s awesome birthday gifts

He also got some dog bandanas from our niece, Rachel, who made them herself! Impressive!

Our dogs modeling their new bandanas