Spoiled Brat? You decide...

I recently celebrated my 29th birthday. Normally I am not the type of person to care much about gifts. I really don't need a gift to make me happy. Pretty much just remembering my birthday is sufficient and maybe a nice card from my husband or a nice dinner out together. Nothing big or extravagant is needed. But something happened this year and I became obsessed with my gift. A few months back Brad mentioned that he had my gift all planned out and he was saving up for it. That got my wheels turning. What in the world kind of gift would he have planned for me that would be so expensive that it would require saving months in advanced. There wasn't anything I could think of that I wanted that would cost that much. And then a few days later he started asking me vague questions like "if you could go anywhere on the Wasatch front where would you go?" The questions confused me so I asked some clarifying questions and he basically wanted to know what sites I'd like to see and I told him it would depend on what I was doing. If I was walking or hiking it would one place, if I was driving it would some where else, if I was on a bike it would be some where else. Then it hit me! Clue #1 - I had been complaining about not doing anything as a family or a couple for a while by that point. Clue #2 - He bought a bike last year that he rarely rides because he says he doesn't want to go by himself. But he said he would love to go with me if only I had a bike to join him. Clue #3 - Bikes are expensive and would require saving money in advance. I just KNEW he was getting me a bike for my birthday. Suddenly I got excited! I thought about all the fun we could have riding around our neighborhood, riding down Legacy Parkway and how many FREE dates and family activities could come out of this one gift. As the months went by the more I thought about it and the more excited I got. When the week of my birthday arrived I was more excited about this gift (100% expecting a bike) than I have ever been about any other gift in my life. And then there were more clues that week. Brad was taking the day of my birthday off of work so that we could do something special. He arranged for a babysitter and had something planned for us to do. However, a few days before, he got a "mysterious" phone call and found out that my gift "wasn't ready" yet and wouldn't be ready for another week. So Brad decided not to take off work on my birthday since we apparently couldn't do what he had planned without the gift and planned to take the following Friday off when the gift would be ready. So Clue #4 - Brad's plans for our day away 100% revolved around this gift. If the gift wasn't ready our plans had to be postponed. A bike TOTALLY fits that description. I thought Brad had planned to go on a long bike ride together somewhere, maybe grab some lunch or something and then ride back. If you don't have a bike ready you can't really follow through on those plans. I now realize I was reading WAY WAY WAY too much into all of this, but all of these clues combined with my curiosity and pure excitement for a bike completely took over my rational thinking. So when I found out that I was going to have to wait a whole other week to find out about my gift I was pretty disappointed. Again, only because I couldn't wait to go on a family bike ride. So the night of my birthday Brad and I went back and forth about whether or not he should tell me what his surprise gift was or if I should just wait (this went on for hours). In the end we decided that I would just tell him what I thought the gift was. When I told him I KNEW I was getting a bike he flat out told me that wasn't it. At first I thought he was just trying to cover it up, just so that I would still be surprised the following week, but after a few minutes I realized he wasn't joking or trying to throw me off the trail. I really wasn't getting a bike. I guess the disappointment I felt was written all over my face. I didn't mean to be disappointed or feel sad but I was SOOOO SURE and SOOOO EXCITED. All my ideas and plans for different family outings and date nights flew out the window. The next morning (Saturday) I had an early morning meeting and when I came home the first thing Brad said to me was..."Let's go get you a bike." I hesitated and resisted at first saying that we didn't have money and he didn't need to do that but he insisted, saying we had some money in savings that we could use and we talked about all the benefits of us both owning bikes. So in the end...I got the bike I had been so excited for.

We spent that whole day trying to find a bike that would work for me. It was kind of a fiasco. They pretty much don't make bikes that are the colors I wanted, in my size (since I'm so tall), and in our price range. But at the VERY END of the day after going to pretty much every bike shop from Ogden down to Bountiful (more than once i might add) I found a bike that works for me. It's not pink or purple or girly colored like I wanted, but the size and price worked for me and it doesn't look too terribly masculine like I was concerned about. We also got Chelsea a little carrier for behind the bike so that she can come along. We didn't get out on our bikes until after 9 O'clock that night but it was SOOOO nice to go on a bike ride as a family. We have been able to go out on the trails around our house several times now and we are loving this new family hobby!

So, maybe I'm a spoiled brat, who made sure she got her way in the end, or maybe I just have a husband who wants his wife to be happy...maybe both. Either way, having a healthy family hobby is worth the title of "Spoiled Brat" in my book!

It's a Cannondale Hybrid