What a Weekend!

Wow, where do I begin? My 30th Birthday was such a huge event for me that now that it is over and passed, I am trying to process everything. I can tell you that it was fun and happy and in no way did I feel depressed or sad. Yay!(I think the moment I realized that I was gonna be okay was when I bought a new shirt in the Juniors department at the mall. I thought, 'If this is 30, I think I can handle it. :)



The festivities started Friday night. I have some dear, dear friends that put together a fun night for me- complete with pizza and (my favorite) chocolate fondue. It was so delicious. White chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, caramel, bananas, brownies, strawberries, pineapple, pretzels, pound cake, monkey fingers, spaghetti squash, etc. Totally kidding on the monkey and squash, just checking to see if you were still paying attention... It was an event truly worthy of being called a caloric disaster, but sooooo worth it :) We talked, we visited, we played a pretty darn competitive game or two of Catch Phrase and had a great evening together. AND, I even got two giant bags FULL of all the cereal I had talked about on this very blog. It was amazing! A truly appreciated gift that I will enjoy every single day. It even had CHOCOLATE Frosted Mini-Wheats in it, a flavor I had yet to try. (Love it, by the way...)












So on Saturday morning when it was time to get up and get going, it literally took me a solid 5 minutes of debating what cereal to have. I went back and forth, I rationalized, I weighed the options, and in the end I went with the Chocolate Frosted Mini-Wheats and the Peanut Butter Crunch. Yes, some of it I ate together. But having that moment of not being able to choose a cereal was a new sensation for me, because I don't think I have EVER had all my favorite Cereal to choose from at the same time! It was the coolest thing. I decided that if I had to crown one cereal "King", I would have to devise some sort of Cereal Bracket Challenge, where cereals would "face-off" with one another and then I could systematically pick the winner. (I am so weird sometimes...) But, I am getting off topic, so back to my Birthday! Saturday was my proclaimed day of disappearance! I told Jacob a few weeks back that for my birthday I wanted to just get to disappear all day- no questions asked. Just me, $100 an 8 hours to do what I wanted. (My personal $100 I had saved up over the months, fyi) So I left at about 9:30 and had total freedom! Okay, it wasn't a total secret what I was going to be doing (shopping mostly) but I just didn't want to feel like I was staying out too long or people were waiting on me to come home. In the end I got some new shoes, jeans, running clothes, etc. and liked being on my own schedule for once. However, I did discover that I am just not cut out to be an all-day shopper. I was tired of it by 5pm (which is when I came home). I don't have a ton of patience for it because clothes shopping is hard work! All the driving around and looking and the deciding-I am not like normal girls in this respect. But I am glad because we would be totally broke if I was :) After a quick clean-up at home, Jacob and I hit Macaroni Grill, another favorite of mine. I had an Internet coupon, $15 in Mac Grill gift cards I got for taking online surveys, AND the restaurant gave me free cake for my birthday, so we ate like kings for very little moo-lah (another favorite thing of mine!). Then we vegged like beached whales the rest of the evening. I am convinced that all good Birthdays end this way. But then the celebrating carried into today when we went to my parent's for dinner and had cake, ice cream and presents! They always give me just what I need, which are the presents I love the most- therefore, I got a bunch of little goodies for my sewing box, cookie cooling racks, a handheld sifter and some very cool universal lids. All stuff I had suggested as Christmas presents, but stuff my Mom sneakily remembered for my Birthday. Mom and Dad, you rock! And since Karl and DeAnne pretty much watched the kids all day yesterday while I disappeared and went to dinner, you guys officially rock too :) Not that anyone with a pulse didn't know that already about either of my sets of parents, but just in case I forget to mention it sometimes. And of course all my friends that helped with my party, gave a gift, wished me a happy day on Facebook, etc. You Rock too! Seriously, this whole experience would have been scary and lame without all of you to share it with. So stay tuned, because tomorrow I will share with all of you Experience #1 of my 30 Things I Have Never Done But Want to Try. Hint: It is not giving myself a mohawk.