Monday, March 5, 2012

Thirty!


Well, I've gone and turned 30. Thirty. My father and brother-in-law were good enough to remind me that I have now entered my 4th decade. It feels a little weird, but I'm not really depressed about it or anything. I'm thankful for the 30 years I've had. They've been good ones. :) I'm blessed.

My sister came down with her family on Friday night to spend the weekend with us.  I spent the night making a strawberries and cream cheesecake.  It turned out to be a great deal more time intensive than I expected due to the strawberries needing to be roasted for an hour and a half (I'm horrible about reading recipes all the way through before I start them.)  I also used a white chocolate chip cookie dough crust (using my mom's famous pudding chip cookie dough) instead of graham crackers.  That was a good choice I think. :D 

Saturday morning I woke up to a "Happy Birthday" phone call from D and the footsteps of my nieces coming down the stairs.  I got started on the bacon wrapped smokies we would be eating later and then got dressed for the day.   D and the boys showed up around 10, and we feasted on the smokies and some delicious french toast made by my mother.  We spent most of the rest of the morning just hanging out.  D and I took the kids outside where they found a coconut. The kids all wanted to cut it open and try the meat and milk (or is it coconut water? Doesn't look very milky to me.)  D cut it open, and let everyone try some.  No one liked they milk.  Most of them spat it right back out.  They had fun with it though.



A while back, D's Sister and I had both purchased some Groupon's for a local ice skating rink.  I thought my birthday might be a fun time to use them.  We also found some extra coupons in a book D had, so we got a pretty good deal on it.  My parents decided not to join us for the skating portion of the day; but my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, nieces, D and his boys, D's sister and her family all came along.  We had a great time! The kids were all very unsteady at first, but they eventually started getting the hang of it and having fun.


My youngest niece loved it!  She has no fear at all.  She kept saying, "Don't touch me! I can do it!"  She did pretty well, too.


I think she's going to be the bravest of her siblings.


Occasionally, D and I got a few moments to skate without little ones hanging on to our hands.



D's sister got me an awesome hat for my birthday.  It kept my head nice and warm while I skated. :)


After skating, my parents met us at PF Chang's for lunch.  It was soooo good!  Click that lunch link for more description on what we ate and some new things I tried. 




After lunch, we headed over to a little playground to let the kids burn off some energy (where does it all come from?!) before walking around at some shops.




In the evening, we all hung out at the house and relaxed.  We ate my mom's yummy spaghetti for dinner, and I opened my presents. 


I had no shortage of helpers!!




Since the kids had been snacking on chocolate chip cookies all night, we decided to put them to bed before we did the cheesecake.  D and his boys stayed the night in the guest room, so we read with the three boys for awhile and sent them all to bed.  

We ended the evening with my yummy yummy cheesecake.  It was totally worth staying up baking till 1 AM the night before. :D 


Yay for Birthdays!!

No comments:

Related Posts with Thumbnails