For his first birthday we spent together, I created the moon. I found a list he had made of things he wanted to do - a bucket list in a sense - and I picked the one that I thought would be the hardest to achieve. And when I say hardest to achieve I really mean almost impossible to achieve. So for his 24th birthday, Rob went to the moon. I put those glow in the dark stars up all around the apartment. I made him a NASA shirt, I used a globe so you could see the earth. I had a small American flag that was planted on the moon in the middle. I even officially made the utility closet a black hole. I found a little star light that projects the stars up on the walls. Plus we had purple jello with a little Toy Story alien as a candle. We went to the moon.
For the second birthday we spent together, I seriously dropped the ball. It was only three days before we were married, so there was nothing big. We went out to eat. We were getting ready to get married. We were packing for our honeymoon. I did get him two video games he wanted a couple weeks earlier so he would have time to play them before the wedding and honeymoon and before annual training which happened right after we got back. But I dropped the ball in regards to doing anything special for him.
But this birthday, I decided it was time to get back to my old tricks and figure out something special for him. The only problem was that I had no idea what to do. At the same time I was coming up with ideas for Father's Day and our anniversary, but I could come up with nothing for his birthday. He wasn't exactly helping me figure out what to do. I would ask him what he wanted, and he would mumble or shrug or reply 'Your love and affection." You wouldn't believe how not useful he really is sometimes. : ) I had nothing!
I was looking for ideas for gift ideas and I found myself on some Father's Day gift site and I found myself staring at the screen. The idea was coming to me so quickly. It was perfect. It would be something he wouldn't be expecting. It would be different. It would be fun!
It would be a very Ping Pong Birthday!
What I was looking at was a dining table ping pong set. It had the net which you can secure to the table. It had two paddles. There were a couple balls, plus two wrist sweatbands. It was perfect. It was weird. But it was perfect.
And from there on, the idea was there in my head and it was all coming together. I would make a banner that said 'PONG' on it as a little wall decoration. Then I would make my own vintage Ping Pong Rules sign that could be hung in man cave. Plus, a glass vase that said 'Ping Pong' to hold all the extra ping pong balls. Like I said it was a weird idea and weird concept, but it was going to work.
This might be a little known fact about Rob, but he loves, and I mean loves, ping pong. He would play all the time if he could. In fact, he used to. There is a ping pong table in the basement of Garmin - I know, crazy, right? - and he used to play all the time after work. Well, he did until he got married and suddenly had a family. Stella Cat can be very demanding. ; ) And he has talked about on many occasions getting a ping pong table for the basement. Well, the house we bought the basement isn't big enough for a ping pong table. Well, technically it is but it is divided into several rooms, so really it's not. Plus, a ping pong table is so low on our list of things we need or want to get for the house, that even if we did decide to get one (we could maybe set it up when we wanted to use it in the garage) it would be a long time.
So this seemed like the perfect solution. Well, almost perfect. It's not exactly like real ping pong but at least he can play. And yes I will even play. I'm a tennis player and I don't care what you say, it's not the same thing. I also figured that since we were having Thanksgiving at our house this year and his brothers will be there that maybe at some point we could set it up on the table, moving it away from anything really breakable and maybe they could play ping pong while they are all together. Or at least play a close substitute.
Come back for part two about how his birthday actually went!
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