Thank You for Having a Birthday

oh yeah: I did get thanked for being born on my birthday. As things stood, the anniversary of my glorious entrance into the world was a fantastic excuse to get around to some of the sightseeing we hadn't yet done as a family. So I'm not kidding when I insist that the Husband and I had this conversation at the end of the day:
Me: Thank you for making it such a fun birthday.
The Husband: Thank you for having a birthday to make into a fun day.

To celebrate my first quarter-century, the three of us went to Bath for the day. After a lovely breakfast in bed, we got ourselves together and drove out to Somerset - through some very off-putting weather - to go spend the time enjoying historic sites and museums. Though, after a two-hour drive and a bus ride into town through the rain, our first order of business was to see to some lunch...

Mmm...so tasty.

 Can I just say, categorically and for the record: I didn't actually feed my baby McDonald's fries! he had a lovely lunch of broccoli, cauliflower, & potato, chased down with apple, strawberry, and blueberry baby mush. To be honest, the first half of that lunch smells just as bad going in as it does coming out, but hey - I'm not the one eating it.

He was definitely lovin' it.

This is just the sort of photo-op that comes about when your 6-month-old son is kept entertained with an empty French fry carton while you finish your lunch.

After lunch, we made our way to the Roman Baths. Awesome. The rain had died off by this point and all three of us had a fantastic time gawping at the statues and sluice gates and hypocausts and curses written on bronze that were thrown into the spring as offerings to Minerva...

We dig ancient Rome.

Just after making an exploratory dip into the pool...

...Oh yeah, and the awesome jade-green, hot, bubbling spring water itself. That was pretty cool, too.

Mmm...tastes like rust. No really, it does.

In fact, at the tour's end, the whole family took a refreshing sip of lukewarm Bath spring water. If that magma-heated goodness doesn't cure all of our ills and ailments, I don't know what will...short of actual science-based medicine, that is. 

Then, it was on to the gift shop. While I purchased a ceramic oil decanter as my first birthday present to myself, the boys scoped out Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis and Harrius Potter et Camera Secretorum. I'm not even kidding, people: this gift shop had Harry Potter...in Latin. If I read Latin, you can bet I'd have been all over that nonsense. As it is, I have more birthday books than hot dinners at the moment (three Hilary Mantel books, including Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies, Arthur & George, and A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin), so it's not like I really needed to get a copy of Harry Potter in Latin...but boy I sure wanted it. After our dalliance with Harrius Potter, Little Maximus Decimus Meridius started the costume-wearing part of my birthday a bit early...

Are you not entertained?

 Then, it was time for yet more costumed fun and frolics as we hiked over to the Fashion Museum to have a look around. Here we are, acting as if we came straight from a Dickens novel:

Of course I'm happy: can't you tell?

Alas, it took until after we'd taken this picture to find the child-sized dress-up section. This necessitated getting Ethan into his second costume of the day: Hilarious Victorian Baby. What can I say? He was working that bonnet.

I'm glad you find this so amusing.

After the museum, we strolled through the town a bit more, taking a quick pit stop to see the Pulteney Bridge before making our way back to the car to head for home. I must say, if this is what turning 25 is like, I humbly request to do it again next year. This was jolly good fun.

Another year older and wiser better travelled