- He wanted me to film,
'cause I'm filming me being surprised.
- No. - So I don't know.
(upbeat music)
- Good morning everyone!
Look, it's Jessica.
The beautiful Jessica Ballinger.
We are about to do Jessica's birthday surprise.
She doesn't know what we're doing today.
- Mystery!
- But I have planned it and kept it a secret,
and so have the kids,
which I'm very proud of the kids for that,
'cause usually--
- I cannot believe Parker hasn't said it.
- Right.
- He's come very close, and I can't believe he hasn't.
- I think part of the way Parker kept the secret
is that he forgot what the secret was for a while,
and that was helpful.
But today, Jessica's gonna find out what her secret,
what do you think your secret is?
- Okay, so Christopher told me to get dressed
as if we were going on a hike,
which would never happen on my birthday.
So I think it's not a hike.
- Okay.
- And I think he's trying to throw me off.
- I said, wear clothes that you wouldn't mind
getting dirty, like if we went on a hike.
- Yeah.
- So, it was a simile.
- So I was kind of thinking, like,
maybe something to do with painting?
Or, I don't know, when he said hike,
I was like, if movement is involved,
then maybe, like an escape room,
but I don't know about dirty.
Clay, maybe pottery?
- Hmm.
- I keep going to sitting down art activities
(laughing)
And also, I know it's not food related,
'cause I would be guessing food things.
But he keeps, like, anxiously talking about,
like, maybe something trying to eat right before hand.
- Yeah, maybe we could get a little snack.
- Yeah, so clearly we're not, like,
going to an unlimited buffet that I could win.
- That would've been good, too.
- Because you wouldn't put food in me.
- That would've been good, too.
Well, maybe next year.
- It's a mystery.
You kept the whole thing a mystery!
- Okay. Well, anyway-- - Unless I just guessed it.
- We're gonna go do it, we're gonna go do the thing,
and we want you to join us, so welcome!
To Jessica's birthday surprise!
- Ooh!
- Christopher says we're almost at this hiking location
for our hike.
I have no idea what we're doing,
but we have to be there at 1:30.
He wanted me to film
because I'm filming me being surprised.
So, I don't know.
So far there are houses.
- I hope I remember how to get there.
- I hope we get lost.
- That would be embarrassing (laughing)
if I took us to the wrong place.
- He's going into, like, residential zones, I think?
It's getting --
it's getting more and more hike-y of a location.
Maybe we're going into a creek.
I like creeks.
Somebody's moving.
They've got a PODS.
Did you get me a house?
- No, I did not get you a house.
- Dang it.
We are open.
Oh, that's a place!
This is an art place.
I bet I'm right about art.
We are open and it looks very artistic.
- I wonder if I can park here.
- I don't know where we are
'cause I don't know what we're doing.
He's asking me where to park.
I don't know what this is!
It's, like, a house,
but it looks like an artsy house.
- We're here.
- Are we doing pottery?
- You guessed it already.
(evil laughing)
- She hadn't guessed it all, like, the whole time
that I had the surprise going. - Because I wasn't trying.
- I had set this up a long time ago,
but yes, I found a place where they do pottery.
- And they have
potters' wheels - That's so fun!
- and fun things like that,
and I'm gonna do it with you,
- Yay, romantically!
- So we get to do it together, which we've never done before
- This is great. - So that's what this is!
- This will be so fun.
- It's a pottery date!
- This is really fun, this is really fun, but also,
just so you know, he didn't give me any clues,
and I didn't ask for any clues,
and then he gave me one clue, which was hiking,
and that's obviously why I guessed pottery!
(laughing)
- Anyway, here we are.
- I'm sorry, I'm such a good guesser of things!
- It's two classes, the first class, they're considered
drop-in classes, but I scheduled them ahead of time.
- Okay, smart.
- Uh, so, basically, what it is is today we'll be making
pottery, and we'll make, like, two or three pieces each,
and then they'll kiln it, I don't think that's the verb
that you use, they'll fire it in the kiln.
- Yes.
- And then we come back, and we do our glazing,
- Okay.
- and then they fire it again.
- Oh!
- 'Cause that's how glaze works.
If you like it, and this is a place you wanna come back to,
they do have, like, a weekly class
sort of thing that I can also do for you,
but I wanted to do this
as a date where it's just you and me,
and then if you want to come back
and do it as, like, a formal,
like, this is the place where you go do your pottery,
- What!
- I might've found a place for you to do pottery.
- Yay!
- Because you used to do pottery, and you loved it.
- Okay! I do. I love pottery doing.
- So that's it! That's your surprise
for your birthday!
Happy birthday! - That's awesome!
Can the kids do it in the future?
How are their youngest classes?
- Uh, these ones are called adult classes,
but they do have kids' classes here also, so--
- That's so fun!
- Yeah! I looked into it.
I did my research.
- Good job!
- Yeah!
- Yay!
(calm music)
- [Chris] I got a little bit on my pants.
- I got some on my pants.
- All right, we finished, and I had a lot of fun.
- I did too.
- So happy birthday to me!
- Good, somebody's gotta get you a present!
- Um, you got me an awesome present!
What are you talking about?
Um, so, what did you think?
Was that okay?
Was that good?
- It was great.
- Yes!
- Thank you. What a cool thing.
I used to do pottery when Bailey was, like,
a brand new baby.
It was, like, my time to go be myself.
Like, one evening a week,
- Yeah!
- Christopher would watch, like, teeny-tiny baby Bailey.
- I got to feed her bottles then.
- Yeah.
- And I don't normally get to feed her bottles,
but I get, like, you'd pump, and then go off and I'd--
- Yeah, you'd be wild.
- And you'd throw the clay, meet new people.
- I haven't done it since then,
- Yeah.
- and I really loved it when I used to do that,
so this was really really cool, really special,
and I'm so glad, it's, like, even better
'cause we got to do it together.
- Yeah, that was super cool.
(car beeps)
Uh-oh. My car's tellin' us--
- Lockin' us in.
- Tellin' us enough chit-chat, time to go.
How many things did you make?
- I think I made four or five.
I don't know.
- I think I made around four.
She was a lot quicker than me.
She was just, like,
(slurping sounds)
"Here's the thing, I just made it!"
And I was like, "uh..."
- Yours were really cool.
You did incredible.
When I, psh, I think it took me, like, six months
to get anywhere near what you did today, like, first try.
- Well.
- So, yours were pretty amazing.
She's a great teacher.
- Yeah.
- It was really great.
- I made a cup and three bowls, and I'm excited
to drink coffee out of my cup.
- You'll be surprised.
They shrink.
- What?
- I know! It'll be, like, this big.
- I'll have espresso.
- Yeah, espresso, that's perfect for that.
- Perfect.
- Hey, it is two weeks later, and guess what?
- It's still my birthday!
- It's still Jessica's birthday.
We're gonna go glaze our pieces now.
They're called pieces.
- Okay, mine wasn't called a piece.
- Yours isn't called a piece?
- Mine's cups and bowls.
- Pieces.
- Pottery?
- Pottery pieces.
- Okay.
- That way if it breaks, it's still a thing.
Still pieces.
- Solid point!
All right!
He's making a prediction about my works of art.
- What?
No, no, certainly not about yours.
Anyway, we're gonna go -- basically, we paint them --
- Christopher was the star student, by the way,
two weeks ago, like, the teacher was shook.
- I-
- She was like, "are you an artist?"
- She didn't-
- "Have you done this before?"
- She didn't do that!
No, we just had fun with it,
and we made pieces.
- Artist.
- Art pieces.
- Jessica, I thought, was the star student.
She had to come and, like, fix mine a bunch of times.
She didn't fix yours.
Yours were like --
- No, she fixed mine a lot.
- Jessica was like
(wiggles tongue)
- I didn't think she fixed yours ever.
She fixed mine a lot.
- Here's a bowl.
- She fixed mine a lot.
- Here's an elegant vahse.
- We shall see.
We'll see what they look like today.
- I know, a mystery.
- Yes.
- So I'm removing any dust and debris from the pieces
before we glaze it because anywhere there's dust
the glaze will sort of not stick to it all
and cause problems with the glazing.
(calm music)
- [Jessica] Ooh, can't wait to see how that turns out!
This is another mystery!
These are...
gonna transform into beautiful butterflies!
- All right, we are all done with our glazing.
And I thought glazing was gonna be, like,
with a paint brush, but there's very little paint brushing.
- Yeah, you paint it if you're, like,
if you're doing the not-on-the-wheel stuff.
- Got it, but it was cool!
It was fun!
I feel like it's a mystery.
I feel like I'm gonna see
those pieces later and not recognize them,
and be like, "Who are you?
"Oh yes."
- That's a hundred percent true.
- Yeah.
- They won't look anything like what you're expecting.
- All right.
- I don't think.
- That's kind of exciting, in a way.
- Yeah.
- So, yeah, let's see how they look!
- Okay, it is one week later, and our pieces are ready,
so we're gonna go pick them up, and we're picking them up
with all these children in the car!
Including the bonus child!
This one!
- [Child] I can't believe Mommy's pregnant!
- It's so nice we can talk about it in the vlog now!
I haven't been able to yet, but hey!
Hey!
Jessica's pregnant, how about that?
- Yay yay yay!
- Yay yay yay, and she's been pregnant this whole time
that we've been making these pieces!
- The whole time.
- The whole time we've been doing pottery,
she's been havin' the pregs.
- [Child] And I knew!
- And you knew.
Well, did he know during your bir-
yeah, he did.
During the first time?
- We did right after.
- Yeah, I think the first time we went, right after we went,
we told the kids because my parents were watching the kids,
and we didn't want them to spill the beans to my parents.
- Yeah.
You were like, "if we tell them before we leave,"
- They might, they might tell Mom and Dad
before we get a chance to all together.
- You were like, "we can't leave them alone with Tim
and Gwen for five hours right after they find out
that they're having a new baby.
- So, we told them right after the first time
that we went to do pottery.
Anyway, we're going right now,
and, uh, and we get to see our pieces today!
Our finished pieces!
- Yay!
- Our finished bowls and cups.
- I'm excited.
You never know how the colors are gonna turn out, I think.
- I apparently, that's how it is.
I've never done it before, so, I'm excited to see it.
- Good, this is the kind of thing you need,
where it's like, an element --
because Christopher's such an artist,
and he has so much control over, like,
so much of his artistic work, I feel,
that this one's wild because you can work so hard
and be, like, a perfectionist all the way up til the end,
and then you, like, dip it in glaze, and you're like,
"well, that--
let's see how that turns out!"
- Actually,
- Like, you don't know!
- This whole process, one of the first things the teacher
said to us, the instructor, was,
"uh, so, you kind of just want to go with it, and, like,
go with the flow a bit, and if you try
and be a perfectionist, it doesn't work."
And I really took that in, and my bowls and stuff
are not the way that I imagined them in my head
when I first started, but I kind of let them become
what they were, and I like 'em.
- You did an amazing job.
Incredible.
- So, sometimes you just gotta let go, I guess.
But we'll see.
Maybe I messed 'em up with that glaze.
(calm music)
- They turned out so cool!
I think this one's yours.
- Yeah, they turned out really neat.
This is mine.
I really like this one.
This is a color combo that I really like.
So it's like that.
- Isn't it pretty?
- And then the sides.
- I love that it's, like, metallic almost.
- Yeah, it's like --
- It has this cool shimmer to it.
- Like, a turquoise with greens and browns and yellows.
I just think this is so pretty.
- This is one of my bowls.
It's very sunsetty I think.
I don't think it was supposed to be drippy,
but it turned out drippy.
- Ooh, I love a drip.
So this is, like, a cup thing that I have.
It's, like, almost too big for an actual cup,
but it would hold things, I don't
but I really like the inside.
So, to me, it almost looks like leaves,
and I like the inside better than the outside.
- And then, I did this one.
This one --
it's just a blue bowl.
It would be good, to, like,
- For our kitchen.
- Feed an animal in, maybe, like an animal feed bowl.
- Yes!
- Like a chicken, or a bunny or something.
- And then I made a lot of, like, cups that don't quite --
that are, like, a little too big for the hand,
but don't have a handle,
so I don't know what was up with that.
This looks like this on the inside,
and like that,
and I like the color combo of this one, too.
- And then this is one of my bowls.
It kind of has the same --
is this the same combo as what you did?
- Yeah, I think so.
- It's got this cool, like, greenish blue on the inside,
and then, is it cappuccino on the outside?
- Cappuccino, yeah.
I really like that,
so I think I talked you into doing that.
- It's really pretty.
- And then, we also have another matching one over here
with this little bowl.
It matches your animal dish,
- Yes, but I --
so the animals could have an animal bowl and an animal dish!
And we could do Alice and Tulip would have their own
matching bowl set.
- And this is my last one.
It was made with a different kind of clay
that has, like speckles in it,
like, the clay itself had more --
- Can I feel that?
It feels like a good cup.
Like, that's a good --
- Yeah, I like it.
that's the right size.
- It's, like, it's a good size, I think.
- It's nice.
- And then I have, this is my last bowl, that I can tell,
so this is my last bowl.
Um, it's got a really nice shape,
and then the outside's, like, really matte,
with some shine to it, which is neat, and then the inside's
really pretty.
I really like that.
I love that when the pottery has the, like, drippy looks,
and very interesting, unique patterns that they create
just through the process, so. Yay!
- Well,
- Happy birthday! - Happy birthday!
This is your birthday present!
- Celebrate, celebrate.
- I made you make your own birthday present this year.
And I hope you had fun!
- Well, you've certainly given me ideas
for your birthday party for next year.
- Oh, we doing some pottery?
A pottery party?
- No, just you'll make your own.
- Oh, I'll just make my own.
Just make my own gift.
What did you guys think of the clay studio?
- It was really cool.
- It was awesome!
- It was really cool!
- [Chris] Really cool?
And would you like to do it someday?
- Yeah!
- Happy birthday.
I love you.
- I love you too, sweetie.
It was perfect, perfect present!