Happy Birthday, Leah!

This post is brought to by Brandon.  On Saturday, January 29th, Leah celebrated her 24th birthday.  Yes, 24!  It seems like yesterday that we were getting married and she was only 21.  It has been an amazing adventure getting older together and the more time we spend together, the fonder of each other we become.  With that in mind, I decided that a bithDAY would not be appropriate for my dear wife and best friend.  A birthWEEK, that’s more like it!  We celebrated all week long, going to different events and having an overall non-stop party.  It was a whirlwind of a week and we can’t wait to do it again soon! On Tuesday we kicked things off with a couple of late night events.  The first was an advanced screening of the second season of Archer on the University of Oregon campus.

It was fun to be surrounded by rowdy college kids again. It isn’t for the faint of heart, but Leah and I think it’s funny. Once the show ended we zipped over to the WOW Hall, where Ra Ra Riot was playing.  This is a new band for us, but we like them a lot!  Their tunes are catchy, their vocalist is really talented and they have a cellist and violinist.  What’s not to love?!  The show was a blast and the party didn’t end until about midnight.  This was a great start to Leah’s birthWEEK!

The next couple of days we spent time at home with Penny.

Penny loves to cuddle, if you can't tell.

Leah and I also used the down time to get all the supplies we needed for the rest of the week.  Leah chose her cake, which of course was her favorite, white funfetti with funfetti frosting!  She also got some pistachio pudding so she could toy around with the batter, which she did.  And the cupcakes that she made were absolutely delicious.  After a little bit of experimentation, Leah decided that her NEW favorite cake is pistachio with chocolate cream cheese frosting! It may sound weird, but they are amazing.

On Friday, Leah and I met up with Sarah and Andres and spent the evening at their place.  They were throwing a massive birthday party for a couple of their friends and we joined in on the festivities.  We listened to music and ate cake until midnight, at which point we went out dancing.  I’m not much of a dancer myself, but Leah always appreciates when I’m a good sport. Most of the dance clubs are close to campus, and on Friday nights they are packed with crazy college kids!  We all danced together, bouncing from one club to the next and had a grand ol’ time!  Needless to say, the next day, which happened to be Leah’s actual birthday, we slept in!

Saturday.  The piece de resistence! The day we’ve been looking forward to for weeks finally came!  Of course the apex was witnessing the smashing action of Emerald City Roller Girl’s Roller Derby, but the day was replete with all kinds of fun.  We started off the day with a great visit to Leah’s parents’ home.  They had breakfast waiting for us, as well as a few gifts for Leah.  We ate waffles with a fruity concoction that Ron invented, and it was so yummy!  I guess it pays to have a food scientist as a father-in-law!  After breakfast, we picked up Sarah and went home to get ready for the Roller Derby by watching Whip It!

I always forget what a great movie this is and Leah likes it because she gets to tease me when I cry at the end!  I can’t help myself.  The scene where Ellen Page says that her seemingly repressive mother is her hero… it gets me every time.

Once we were sufficiently pumped up, Andres joined us and we all went down to the event.  The place was completely filled, with all types of people.  It was truly a spectacle.  All the derby girls had creative names, and the referees got pseudonyms too!  We routed for Eugene’s very own Flat-Track Furies, and these girls knew how to hit hard.  At first, we sat in the bleachers, but after about 10 minutes we couldn’t stand being so far from the action, so we ran up to the rink and sat just at the edge in the “CRASH ZONE”! This is an inside view from the crash zone.  We had the best seats in the house, as far as I’m concerned.  And we actually had a girl wipe out into us at one point!  So cool!

The blurry girl on the far left is the jammer in the process of scoring points on our team.

Now for those who aren’t familiar with Roller Derby, each team has 5 girls on the track. Four girls from each team make up a pack of blockers, and then they are followed by the “jammers”. The jammers make the points by passing the pack of girls successfully, getting one point for each girl of the opposing team they get around. It wouldn’t be too difficult if the pack wasn’t made up of big girls like “Lotta Leadpipe” that are trying to ram into you, making you fall out of the play. Here are two of the best jammers of the night. (The jammers have stars on their helmets so you can find them more easily.)

The Furies had two really good jammers, the above girl named Tearin’ Skirts was one of the highest scorers, which I attribute it to the shiny gold pants.  They must have given her some type of super-human power. There was also one girl named Aphro-fighty, which was my favorite name of the night. The jammer from the opposing team (we called her Furry Legs) was virtually unstoppable.  She must have been a professional skater of some sort because our blockers would go to hit her and she would just weave in and out, dodging every attempt. By half time, the other team had more than double our points and things weren’t looking good for us.

But somehow our team got it together and tied the game!

So we went into a two-minute SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME! The whole arena was on their feet screaming! The other team scored some points, then their jammer wiped out, then our jammer scored some points. It was back and forth for about a minute, but then…

We won! Final Score: 144-139.  The fury pulled it off!  Call it home-court advantage, or whatever you like, but the result was an incredibly exciting game and a memory that Leah and I will never forget.  At the end of the match we looked over their schedule, and as it turns out, they have a bout at home once a month.  So there will be more roller derby in the future!  Yay! We had so much fun, we wanted to think of our own Roller Derby names for when we start our own team. We came up with Annie Chokely, Holly Go-Fightly, Doprah, Tyra Shanks, Bruisin B Anthony, HELLeanor Throwsavelt, and Leah’s favorite MissHell OBomb-A. If you want to join our team, you’ll have to think of an awesome name and invest in some fishnet tights.  We’ll be holding try-outs soon.

This birthday was the best we’ve had together!  Going out, partying and getting to know Eugene a little better was so much fun.  But most of all, this birthday was a wonderful way to tell my darling wife that I love her, and that I would be bored to death without her.  To quote Pablo Neruda, “You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips, And in your life my infinite dreams live.”  Thanks for reading, everyone.  We’ll see you next time!

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