Corey's Birthday

Mercy.  I'm more than a month late with this post but it just had to be written about so we never forget how special it was.

A little backstory...Natalie has been earning "Vikings" at all year at school for everything from remembering to bring back library books and signed forms to helping clean up litter on the playground and in the lunchroom. The Vikings that all the kids earn can be saved and eventually spent a few times a year at the "Viking Store" that the school sets up.  The Viking Store sells all sorts of stuff like pens and erasers and pencil pouches, etc.  Last fall Natalie spent 40 hard earned Vikings on a scented marker that stopped working a few weeks later and she learned a valuable spending lesson: no pen, regardless of how yummy it smells, is worth 40 whole Vikings!  So this semester she put a lot more thought into how she would spend her Vikings.  In fact, she skipped a winter store event entirely in an effort so build up a stockpile to buy something big at the last Viking Store of the school year.  In addition to the usual stuff for sale, there were a few big ticket items like a popcorn party at recess, a pizza party after school one day,  having a Quiznos sandwich delivered to the classroom at lunchtime...some fun stuff.  One of the big ticket items was a free burger at The Habit Grill that would cost her 100 Vikings.  She had 110 to spend and knew that there would be nothing left of her loot if she traded them all in for a burger.  But she also knew that Corey really likes The Habit and made the decision to get the gift certificate for him for his birthday.  So sweet.  So the day came to part with her Vikings and she handed almost every one of them over (she'd been saving them since last November) in exchange for a birthday burger for Dad.  

 She was so proud and thrilled to give him that gift and insisted we go the very night of his birthday for a burger dinner.  She was convinced that the certificate treated the whole family to dinner when in actuality it bought her kid-size burger but we played it up and she wore a smile all night thinking she'd spent her Vikings on a night out for all of us.  So cute.  The Habit made it so special, too.  I was expecting a photo-copied coupon to come home with her but instead it was a nicely printed certificate and only a small edge had to be removed to redeem the burger and the rest of it was left entirely intact to hang on to.  Really awesome.

It meant a lot to Corey that she passed up gobs of goodies at the Viking Store to buy him a birthday dinner.