February is Liz's Birthday Month, pt. 2
May 11, 2025: While attending a gig of Liz’s at the Columbus Museum of Art I find myself contemplating the Goodness of Liz and All That She Deserves in this Life. My thoughts turn to her next birthday, a big one worthy of a big celebration. I have a Vision. That week I start making phone calls and sending emails. Everything fall quickly in place for February 2026.
October 2025: Liz has been mentioning every now and then that her birthday is coming up, saying “this might be fun” or “that might be fun.” I tell her “Listen, I’ve been planning a surprise birthday trip for these dates, so please ask for them off from work.” Liz is game, I need not say any more.
February 12, 2026: Very early in the morning we find ourselves at the Columbus Airport. Liz has packed according to my recommendations and still does not know where we are going.
And frankly I really don’t know when to reveal our destination to her so we discuss it and Liz decides she’d rather be told than find out when she sees our tickets or whatever, so in the security line I tell her and she sends this picture to her family saying “Brigham is taking me to Grandma’s beach house!” She was surprised and happy and it hadn’t been on her list of guesses so I was pretty pleased with myself.
Here we are waiting for our flight but. wait. Who could have sent me this photo of us sitting in the airport?
Well it turns out Brigham had more than one surprise up his sleeve because Katie and Joel and Anne were coming on the trip with us, too! They sat right across the way from us in the airport and Liz didn’t notice at all. In fact, we would have made it all the way to our Las Vegas layover without her knowing if our line boarding the airport hadn’t stopped right in front of Anne. Liz stared at the familiar woman for a moment and said “What?! What?!” Ooooh we’re all so tricky!
And you know what was crazy? When we were at the Las Vegas airport we ran into Liz’s friend Lauren, who was on her way to Orange County for some business meetings What a wild coincidence, right? Better get the pic to send to the Gal Pals to let them all know about this chance encounter!
Oooh I’m a devious fellow, there’s still so many surprises left in store!
And at long last, Orange County! First stop? Matty’s Patty’s Burger Club for some celebrity chef burgers that really hit the spot!
And then down the road we go to the beach house. I’d been going to it my whole life but it had been ten years since my last visit. It’s always just as one remembers it, even if it gets a little updated now and then.
Naps were in order but eventually I was mean and made Liz wake up and come look at the view from the roof…
…because Oh Snap, Surprise! The Gal Pals were staying in the upper unit that weekend! Ha ha ha, Lauren wasn’t on a business trip after all! Ha ha ha, so many Surprises! So many Tricks!
And now, some nice beach house hang outs.
And our fun activity for the night: We went to this enormous super-supermercado called the Mercado Gonzalez Super Mercado. It had a lot of different food stands to buy a meal at, but actually Liz and I went over to an L&L Barbecue in the same parking lot for our dinner to relive the meal we had over and over on our honeymoon, but after that we reconvened at the Mercado Gonzalez from churros from El Moro because Holy Cow, it had an El Moro!
Back to the house, the Gal Pals caught up into the night on the balcony and I went on a walk around.
February 13: Starting the morning with a nice morning walk around with Liz. Being on Eastern Time has its advantages.
Up on the roof I made an audacious joke before the Gal Pals headed off for a Galentine’s Day of Fun.
I spent the day with Katie and Joel and Anne. Stops 1 & 2: the cool Tree of Life mosaic at a nearby LDS Chapel and a visit to a Sidecar Donuts to load up on donuts for a surprise reason (plus Katie got some bonus donuts).
Then we walked around the pier and pier adjacent area for a bit.
Before heading to a nice little lunch at the Crab Cooker. Also I should add that it was Katie and Joel’s anniversary. So there was a little Katie & Joel’s Anniversary vibe underlying all the day’s activities.
Went back to the beach house and, uh oh, the landlord showed up!
Just kidding! We’re glad that Grandma (and Mom and Dad) made it down to see us! (And that the Gal Pals made it back from their boat ride safe).
Sunset at the beach time.
And then, the big event! The Official Celebration of Liz Dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. A nice thing about me and Liz is that the Spaghetti Factory is a treasured and formative restaurant for the both of us.
And then back to the beach house with us for Liz’s “cake”, a tower of two dozen Sidecar Donuts!
February 14: I start my day with a long walk to this park with a light tower in it while Liz goes on a run.
Today Christina and children join us for the fun. We walk to the pier with Rowdy and meet up with everyone for Corn Dogs!! Liz and I walk back to the beach house with Rocky and Stephanie leaves for home. So glad you could join us for as long as you did and thank you for all the help planning and coordinating! Stephanie was my first call once I had the beach house secured to get the Gal Pal meet up in action. I saved her name as “Customer Service” in my phone so Liz wouldn’t suspect anything should Stephanie call or text while we were together. But honestly all the planning only took like 2 phone calls and 2 texts and 2 emails. That’s how efficient the Gal Pals are when it comes to going on a group vacation!
Next up … Kimmy Green joins us for the rest of the day! Getting in touch with Kim about this trip was on my to-do’s for a long time but I never to-did it, glad Liz could help arrange their “surprise” reunion. We all went to the Balboa Fun Zone for a bit and a number of us enjoyed a classic frozen banana.
Liz and I have a Valentine’s Day tradition of getting burgers and milkshakes, it’s a nice tradition. We were going to try this place called the Crystal Cove Shake Shack (not a Shake Shack®, but an entirely different thing) but the line of cars to get into the parking lot was Outrageous! So we traveled further down the coast to Husky Boy which, for a former Huskie (or is it once a Huskie, always a Huskie? Probably!), proved to be a nice substitute and a good time. Also: a scary parking lot as cars inched by the tables. Lots of kids or adults could’ve been squished if everyone wasn’t looking out for everyone. AND we saw a Space X launch, that was wild!
Ok honestly I really thought I had more pictures from Husky Boy than that but I guess I didn’t? Weird. You’d think I’d at least have a picture of my burger, right? I guess we were too busy having fun and not getting run over by cars.
February 15: Early in the morning we told the rest of the Gal Pals good bye as they headed off to their flights home. Then Liz and I took a long walk in the other direction from the beach house, all the way to the Frog House, which used to scare me as a kid but now I am brave.
We weighed our options. Lots of opportunities presented themselves. But the #1 opportunity was to take Joel and Katie and Anne to San Marino. After church, of course! Oh and on the way we had Home State, because the cards were all aligning so nicely. And then walked around the little neighborhood where the Home State was and saw some lovely lovely flowers at Lenita by Grita.
It felt odd landing in Orange County instead of Burbank or LAX and it felt odd to be in a part of California that wasn’t Grandma’s so it was quite nice to have everyone wanting to go up to San Marino on Sunday. Tried to show my new family all the important stuff. Walked around the backyard, walked to the turtle pond, walked around town, went and got fried soup dumplings and Yang Chow, had a dinner in the dining room. We barely scratched the surface of the things that it occurred to me to do but it was a good to do.
And, hmmm. Very odd. Seems I don't have any pictures of the food or the eating? Oh well. Guess we were having too much of a good time.
(Also have you noticed that Liz got a new hat)
February 16: The clock was ticking but we weren't out of time yet! Liz and I take one more Newport Beach morning walk. We went to the pier and back. It was getting windy, it was getting ready. Sort of perfect timing.
Saying goodbye to the beach house but not Newport Beach just yet … we get a little late breakfast at Pop Pie Co., the nice pie place next to the Sidecar Donut. Probably got a donut, too.
And then it was airports and flights for the rest of the day. We met friendly dogs while walking around the Santa Ana airport and had a nice long layover in Las Vegas. Liz and I got Wendy’s and watched a man eating stacks and stacks of Wendy’s hamburger patties and cheese, no buns. Like 4 stacks of 5-8 patties. Get that protein! And then after one more flight we were back in Columbus, heading to our cars and going home to our houses. Just like that!
It was my dream to give Liz a dream getaway that she had never dreamed of and, if I may say so, this dream of mine was pulled off. Every single surprise went off without a hitch thanks to many sneaky collaborators who love Liz and want to see her celebrated. Thanks for being lovable, Liz, and for letting us celebrate you!
