extravaganza

BEST. DAY. EVER.

i remember reading an article in the ny times a few years ago about how turning 30 had become the new sweet sixteen– like, nyc socialites were throwing fancy parties and costume balls and huge soirees for themselves. and i remember thinking, “wow. when i turn 30, i better make it good.”

ladies and gentlemen, i’m here today to tell you that i did good. i did REAL good.

in fact, not to get egotistical here or anything (is that ironic to write on yr own blog?), but i’m pretty darn sure i gave myself (and hopefully my friends) one of the best days OF MY LIFE!!!!!!!! HOLY COW!!!!!!!!!!

in fact, i can barely write this entry cos i just GET SO EXCITED!!!!!!!! so prepare yrself for a photo-heavy post, cos words cannot do justice to the amount of pantsing that we did for my birthday.

HOW TO HAVE THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER

by sarah e. pants

step one: rent a party bus for the day. make sure it includes feather boa-lined windows.

step two: invite the most amazing, funnest, coolest, laughiest, BESTEST pantsers in the universe to join you! and give them party hats!

this included chris and henri (who totally matched the bus, btw):

sally, trish and erica!

msw and brian!

jordan, who was actually one of my freshmen in ye olde rice days…

tommy and selina!

talena, cos pigbutts gotta represent!

erica and josh, who rocks his own unique party hat style:

and, last but not least, the cool kids in the back of the bus (l-r): matt, meredith, amber, juliet, ray and mandy!

(caitlin and jordan’s husband, juancho, also joined us but they weren’t there when i took those pictures).

as i looked around the bus, i realized that this party was basically my blog… COME TO LIFE! in other words, it was heaven.

step three: go to the park and play kickball!!!!

now, you may be surprised by the fact that i picked a sport to play on my birthday, given my anti-athleticism. but COME ON. kickball basically means standing around and talking smack about people. i EXCEL in this sport.

plus, it allowed me to take a group photo, which is one of my most favorite things to do!!!!!!

hello, certifiable fridge material.

we divided up into two teams, the unicorns and… i think we called ourselves el ocho? i’m not sure. our lack of concern for having a name should pretty much clue you in to who won but WHATEVS. the other team had tommy, who always wins EVERYTHING. AND they had sally, who came dressed to kick some kickball pants.

on the other hand, my team had erica, who looks really cute when she’s trying to catch a ball:

and me, who can’t really catch worth a darn BUT knows how to pose for sassy sports portraits (available in wallet size, mom!):

unfortunately, i don’t know how to pose for team portraits.

but i mean, LOOK AT US. we’re practically the mighty ducks. so even though the unicorns totally creamed us, i know everyone was secretly hoping we would win and then make a semi-watchable sequel.

plus, mandy was the official judge, and she told me that the official score was sarah: 44, everyone else: 0. YES!

we climbed back on the bus…

… and i told everyone that there was a SUPER SECRET SURPRISE!!!!!! EEEE! i swear i almost peed my pants on the way there, cos i wanted to spill my guts so bad!!!! cos it was gonna be awesome!!!! and i knew everyone would love it!! and they did! cos:

step four: surprise yr friends with a HIP HOP DANCE LESSON!!! featuring the best and most hardcore teacher ever, crystal!

you may remember crystal as erica’s and my totally fierce dance teacher who taught us how to crank dat lion king.

see, when i thought about my birthday, i made a list of all of my favorite things (which you will see all over this entry, obvs). and one of them was “hip hop dance movies.” so, i figured what better way to celebrate this passion than to actually LIVE IT?!!!!! with all of my friends!!!!

fortunately, i have v. v. adventurous friends who love to dance (uh, did you SEE yesterday’s entry?), so everyone was totally game.

this was probably my favorite part of the whole day, just cos… well, see for yrself:

how cute are we?!!!!

and oh, it gets better. we totally cranked dat soulja boy!!!!!!!!

and, merging my passions for JT and “step up 2,” we learned a dance to “my love” with a partner! which gave me even MORE respect for andie and chase, cos, you guys, dancing with a partner is HARD. as you are about to see:

and, finally, we couldn’t do a hip hop dance class without learning CRANK DAT LION KING!!!!!!!

i know you’re not supposed to say this when you’re the one who *planned* the surprise and therefore knew about it in advance but BEST SURPRISE EVER!!!!!!!!

esp. cos, of course, WE TOOK A GROUP PHOTO!!!

seriously, we could be the cast of a dance movie. i mean, esp. cos it’s a picture and not a video of us dancing.

i am seriously considering blowing that photo up in poster form and getting everyone to sign it. cos I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!*

(*matt can verify this for sure, but i believe i said this less than two hours into the day. next year, you guys should really place bets)

i knew it would be hard to top the dance class, so i went with Old Reliable for the next portion of the day…

step five: stuff yr face with cupcakes from sugar mama’s and play in the park!!

i think i enjoyed watching people meet sugar mama’s cupcakes for the first time ALMOST as much as i enjoyed eating mine. although the austin folks were well-acquainted with these delicacies (i mean, exposure to cupcakes comes with the posh deluxe territory), the houston gang had never encountered this level of cupcake deliciousness.

happy birthday to yr TUMMY, juliet!!!

but, like all good pantsers, these guys knew how to handle their cupcakes. by way of DEMOLISH!!!!!!

hanging out in the park gave everyone the chance to enjoy the GORGEOUS weather as well as recup from kickball and hip hop dancing.

and, as always happens when meredith and henri are together for longer than an hour, tomfoolery ensued.

it turns out that i’m actually a bit of a personal trainer when it comes to birthdays, cos i after only a few minutes of rest, i got everyone back on their feet for a rousing game of stomp the balloon!

i love caitlin cooling her head with a beer, like, “NOW what, sarah?. NOW WHAT!”

you may recall stomp the balloon from last year’s field day, but just to explain: the purpose of the game is to stomp everyone’s balloon (tied with a string to their ankle) while protecting yr own. as you can imagine, this leads to a lot of kicking, elbows to the head and a *surprising* amount of soreness the next day. it’s also SUPER SUPER FUN!!!!

here’s a video (thanks erica g!) of the insane balloon carnage that occurred:

oh what, you want MORE? good. cos we played again!

after that everyone basically died. ok, not really, cos that would negate the Best Day Ever thing but we were tired!!! so we laid around the park and talked and played bocce and threw around this giant frisbee:

see, being 30 means everything is bigger and better! EVEN FRISBEES!!!!

after the park break, we rode on to the final destination, which was also a surprise!!

step six: GO TO A CARNIVAL!!!!!!!

oh YES WE DID!!!!! seriously, it has always been a dream of mine to go with a big group of friends to a carnival, a) cos it’s kinda like the reverse of “big.”  b) cos my dad was a safety pants when i was growing up and wasn’t a fan of letting me on rides where death was an actual possibility.

but now i’m 30! and i can take my life into my own hands on rides like pharaoh’s fear!!!!!

mid-way through pharaoh’s fear, i realized that my dad is a v. v. smart guy. cos this ride was sooo not safe. but whatevs! it was fun! look!

pharaoh’s fear was an instant hit with pants world, leading sally and amber to ride it, like, four more times and resulting in one of my favorite (ok, i had a lot, but still) pictures of the day:

(major photojournalism props to caitlin for snapping this amazing moment)

that picture captures PRECISELY what i hoped would happen on my 30th birthday. as in, PANTS MELTING!!!!

we even got into a sort of “ride off” with the people on the other end of the boat. which was fun except by this point, i had ridden a lot of other rides and was starting to feel sick. and i didn’t even have any funnel cake!

we totally hit the jackpot with this carnival, cos look, a handgliding ride!!!!!

i have never actually laid down on a ride, and i have to say, it’s a weird feeling. plus you spend half the time staring at the bootys of people in front of you.

while i was busy riding rides, mandy and erica were busy winning me things!! yay!! i will SO go steady with you guys!

erica also won me a fabulous tiara, which i rocked on the tilt-a-whirl!

looking back, i can see why several of us almost made ourselves sick. i mean, even hitting the ripe old age of 30 fails to lessen the awe-inspiring power of sporting an “unlimited rides” wristband. esp. esp. when you can ride things like this! WITH NO LINES!

and this!!!!! (dad, don’t look!)

ahhhhh yes, the infamous zipper. where the carnie locks you in behind bars as you realize, with chilling certainty, that this ride has definitely, definitely brought on the untimely demise of many people.

which is why trish and sally rode it twice.

meanwhile, i found these guys on a kind of spider/spinny ride. jordan’s review: “this ride was good… for a four-year-old.”

as you can imagine, a group of v. v. tired pantsers emerged from the carnival and boarded the bus…

BUT IT’S NOT OVER YET!! i still had more awesomeness to pack in, like:

step steven: eat at whole foods downtown, so everyone can pick out their own tasty food! and recharge for…

step eight: the justin timberlake sing-along at the alamo ritz!!!!!

henri v. nicely offered to add a show (and host it) to coincide with my birthday celebration. not only that, but the alamo staff surprised me with a cake and a card!!! isn’t that nice?!!!!!!

why yes, i AM still wearing my tiara. thank you.

i tried to recreate my “blowing out candles with my eyes” photo from when i was two, but i think it turned out less cute, more creepy.

ah well. i guess it’s harder to pull off the “cute” factor when you’re an old lady of 30.

so we danced and sang along with justin, and it made me so happy, once again, to see all of these amazing members of pants world gathered in the same room. plus, we TOTALLY showed off our newly learned “my love” dance to… varying degrees of success. but we had HEART! you guys, we had heart.

plus, henri gave me the best present ever… his brain! in a box!

by the end of the sing-along, people were dropping like flies, so only five of us actually made it to mugshots. but i considered that a sign of a good day– i mean, if you can’t even handle mugshots, you KNOW you’ve had Too Much Fun.

THE END!

and now you know that i wasn’t exaggerating. it really was the Best Day Ever. not to mention the Best Birthday Ever.

oh man i’m so full of squee, i want to do it again!! let’s do it again, you guys!!!!

p.s. gah i am such a lucky girl.

p.p.s. I LOVE YOU GUYS!

© 2009 Poshdeluxe.