Happy 7th Birthday Sadie!!

Happiest 7th birthday to our Sadie, aka Sadiebug, Sadieboo, Sadiebear, Goose, Sades!!

Ramping Up

To say Sadie has been excited & looking forward to her 7th birthday would be the understatement of the year :) Throughout the Fall she’d regularly ask how many days until her birthday, and her frequency ramped up as we went through the month of December. She'd often wake up with a huge grin on her face, and her first words to us would be, "My birthday is only # days away!"

This is the 2nd family birthday we’ve celebrated on the road. We celebrated Doug’s 43rd birthday in Amelia, Italy in September. A few weeks back in Luang Prabang, Laos I picked up a few cute birthday decorations I found at a Japanese store in town. I managed to keep them hidden away in our luggage over the following weeks.

Early Celebrations

Sadie’s birthday celebrations kicked off early . . . Last night our amazing Vietnamese guide, Tom, surprised Sadie with a beautiful birthday cake at dinner! She was totally surprised and handled the whole thing really well, especially since we were in a restaurant and our hooplah attracted the attention of many nearby eaters. It was an incredibly kind, thoughtful thing for Tom to do, and we were very grateful & touched by the gesture! Even once we were back in the hotel room later that evening, Sadie commented herself on how nice it was of Tom.

The Day is Here, But Not Yet the Hour/Minute

Finally January 6th arrived . . . it was her birthday!! Except that she kept saying "It's not my birthday yet." She wanted to know exactly what time of day she was born, and in her mind, only at that point could her birthday officially begin! We insisted that a birthday is to be celebrated all DAY, but respected her wishes and set an alarm for 4:05pm :)

Floating Mekong Morning Market

Sadie wasn’t too happy about starting her birthday with an early wake-up and a floating market. She managed to put those feelings aside, though, and enjoyed many parts of the market experience, including yummy noodle soup and exploring a pineapple boat. Leaving the floating market, she said (unsolicited) to us "“Even though we had to wake up early on my birthday to come to the market, I’m glad we did!"

Transport Overload

Between 9:00am and about 3:00pm we had a 2.5 hour car drive and a 2.5 hour ferry ride. Again, Sadie was not too jazzed about her birthday being a travel day, but she held it together, especially when she got to watch a movie on the ferry :) Old-school classic "Honey I Shrunk the Kids".

Official Celebrations Begin

Once we arrived in Phú Quốc we snagged a Grab taxi and made the 20 minute drive to our hotel. As we were checking in, I looked down at my watch and it was exactly 4:05pm, Sadie's birth time. We all paused what we were doing at that point and each gave her a big hug. She was soooo happy :) From that point onward we could openly celebrate her special day! She asked many times if she looked any different vs. 6 years old :)

Afternoon Plunge & Sunset Art

We made a quick turn-around to the hotel swimming pool overlooking the beach. The birthday girl was super excited to be swimming on her special day, and even got thrown around by Daddy a few times. We mosied on out to the beach to catch a beautiful sunset. The sun was minutes away from setting, and Sadie made a comment that she wished she had her art set with her to draw the sunset. I hustled up to the room and grabbed it. The girls enjoyed creating with paints and oil pastels as the sun disappeared on the horizon.

Presents Time

Showered & cleaned up, Paige and I got to work on decorating for Sadie's special day. There was some "assembly" involved in the decorations we had, so we got to work. With great teamwork, we hung the Happy Birthday tassel sign from the bamboo stair railings. It looked awesome & festive.

Paige switched on our blue tooth speaker (we never leave home without it!) and queued up our family birthday song, Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday". We pressed play and called down the birthday girl! Check it out in this video:

Last night, Paige & Doug broke off early and went to the Can Tho night market so Paige could pick out a few fun things for Sadie. Sadie was perplexed at first by the dancing, light-up pig :), but LOVED all the other things from Paige (sparkly bear key chain for her backpack and a few sparkly hair accessories). Last night when it was just me & Sadie in the hotel room, she said to me "It's OK if I don't have any presents. My present is you guys." That's our sweet, thoughtful & genuine Sadiebug!

Birthday Dinner

We wrapped up the night with a yummy bun cha dinner up the street. We all wore the clothes we had custom made in Hoi An for the special occasion :)

In some ways it's even more special to celebrate birthdays on the road this year. With limited (NO) extra space in our bags, we can't default to traditional physical gifts. We have to get more creative about experiences / gestures that we can gift that are meaningful, thoughtful & personal to the birthday person. For example, we hyped up alot the fact that we'd be arriving to an island on Sadie's birthday and that her "birthday week" would be on a beautiful island at a nice place. That made her feel even more excited. Also, Sadie is a snuggler. She loves any chance she gets to sleep in the same bed as me or Doug. So one of the things we "gifted" her was one night of snuggling with each of us in this next week or so. She was ecstatic! :)

Happiest birthdays to this amazingly loving, caring, silly, creative, thoughtful little girl. We love you with all our hearts! Happy 7 years old!! xoxo

Happy 7th birthday, you gorgeous girl! We love you!