Celebrating E’s Birthday

I can’t believe E will be 18 next week! I met the kid when he was two years old. Yikes, that makes me feel old! Since he’s getting older he hasn’t been coming over every other weekend like in the past, which we totally get, so it was nice to see him this weekend. It’s so weird that he drives himself over too. Nice, though! As is our tradition, the birthday boy got to choose his meals this weekend, so I ended up making cheeseburger macaroni (homemade, not Hamburger Helper – blech) for dinner Friday night and my homemade meatloaf for dinner Saturday night. I also baked brownies since E prefers them over cake.

Friday we watched Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. We had $50 of credit in our Fandango Now account (formerly known as M-GO) so I purchased it. With a $3 offer, it cost $17 which is expensive if you ask me. But that credit had been sitting there untouched since we purchased our TV last summer so why not? I was surprised it wasn’t available in 4K, though. Bummer. Also, the free bonus content that came with it is only accessible on the website so you can’t stream it on the TV through the app. That’s just dumb if you ask me. I don’t care to sit in front of my computer to watch anything longer than a short YouTube video.

Before E went to bed we gave him his birthday gifts which we put in a Star Wars reusable bag we had gotten at the dollar store – a Starburst blueberry candle (since he was looking for that scent since our trip with him to IKEA recently), a BB-8 ceramic bank (since he loves BB-8 and really liked the Pokemon ceramic bank we got him for Christmas), and $40 since we ran out of ideas and he loves money anyway.

Saturday we decided to go to the movies and see Zootopia. I like the theater in the mall by us because matinee tickets are only $4.25. The seats in the theater themselves leave something to be desired, but it’s cheaper than going out to the other theater we used to frequent since it’s further away and the tickets are $5.50. We all really enjoyed the movie, and I swear I wanted to see every single movie in the preceding trailers. I think I like kid films a little too much.

After the movie we headed over to Bath & Body Works so I could grab a free travel size lotion with a coupon I had. In the past I would have felt embarrassed to walk in and only check out with my free item but I really don’t care. It smells really good too!

Lotion

E bought some stuff at Hot Topic and FYE with his $40 so that didn’t last long. ;)

After shopping we had lunch at Red Robin since I knew it wouldn’t cost us anything out of pocket. They emailed me that morning with a free birthday burger coupon for E, and there was a 16% discount code on my rewards card. On top of that I logged into Discover and purchased a $50 e-certificate. E didn’t end up wanting a burger (he got a chicken sandwich), though, so technically we used the coupon on my burger. I got the regular cheeseburger instead of my usual (the Banzai burger) which I shouldn’t have done because it’s not nearly as good. Joe ended up having a salad which really wasn’t worth the price ($5 for a very small plate of lettuce and a few veggies). That being said, only $18.51 was taken off the card (and that includes tip) for three people. Gotta love that!