{"id":4516,"date":"2016-05-23T22:31:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T05:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=4516"},"modified":"2016-05-23T22:31:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24T05:31:17","slug":"big-birthday-report-better-than-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/23\/big-birthday-report-better-than-great\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Birthday Report – Better than Great"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Birthday<\/a> \"birthday<\/a>\"Brithday<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s pretty damn weird that after all the build up I haven’t written a thing about my 70th birthday itself! It was so lovely that I just didn’t want to let go of it even enough to tell its stories. \u00a0I just kind of hung onto it for a day. \u00a0So here it is:<\/p>\n

We all went to Santa Cruz, to the beach: sons, daughters-in-law, grandsons and Rick and me. The boys found a great house with a big\u00a0open plan, perfect for people whose ages run from 70 to 19 months with an almost-five-year-old Nate in the middle.<\/p>\n

It was just what I wanted. Toddlers Jake and Eli eating blueberries and flirting with their grandparents, grown-ups talking about everything from politics to child rearing to just-executed beach walks (of which there were many.) Goofing around. \u00a0Reading stories. \u00a0Cuddling on the deck. \u00a0Coloring. Being gifted with three home-made birthday cards covered in crayon and glitter-glue. \u00a0And with an urgently required lemon zester.<\/p>\n

Staying up late talking – and listening to the boys talk with each other. \u00a0Catching up while the kids slept. \u00a0Hanging around in the early morning with the mommies and the little guys. \u00a0Walking from our house to the far end of the promenade, a windy point, and then back past the house to the other end, where there’s a lighthouse. We did it in different combinations, a couple of times in the daylight and one gorgeous time in the dark, watching the lighthouse lazily send out its signal and wondering\u00a0at the full moon and its bright path of light on the sea.<\/p>\n

It was, in short, our\u00a0family at its best. \u00a0They gave\u00a0me what I wanted most:\u00a0to wake up and wander out in my PJs and find the little ones sitting on the floor giggling;\u00a0to watch the sunset bundled up on the deck with Nate in my lap, and to enjoy our sons and their\u00a0wives. \u00a0To all be together in the same place for more than dinner.<\/p>\n

From\u00a0each of them came hugs, and humor and\u00a0generosity of spirit – and lots of love.\u00a0Times like these are why we celebrate being born\u00a0at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s pretty damn weird that after all the build up I haven’t written a thing about my 70th birthday itself! It was so lovely that I just didn’t want to let go of it even enough to tell its stories. \u00a0I just kind of hung onto it for a day. \u00a0So here it is: We … Continue reading Big Birthday Report – Better than Great<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3799,3800,3,4,3798,3801,42,2889,7,1],"tags":[3860,374,3863,3417,1146,3862,3861,646],"class_list":["post-4516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3799","category-3800","category-aging","category-baby-boom","category-big-birthday","category-big-birthday-70-1946-2016","category-family","category-grandparents-2","category-life","category-uncategorized","tag-70th-birthday","tag-birthday","tag-daughters-in-law","tag-family","tag-grandchildren","tag-grandsons","tag-husbands","tag-sons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-1aQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4516"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4528,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516\/revisions\/4528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}