The big 23

I turned 23 last Thursday. I can officially claim for about a week and half more that I am older than Devin :) . Not that that is a good thing, but hey. It was a fabulous day. I woke up to balloons and flowers from my sweet hubby, along with a note from him and Hallie telling me how much they loved me. So sweet. We both had to be places that day, me at work and Devin at school, but we came home by 7 to spend the rest of the night together. Devin made dinner for me and it was so yummy. He made manicotti, french bread, and corn. Here he is enjoying his food. (Can you tell he hates having his picture taken?)

Then I got to open my present from him. He got me tickets to go see the 2008 Olympic Gymnastic Men and Women's teams at the Energy Solutions Arena in SLC!! I was SOOOO EXCITED!!! Man, he did his homework and picked out an AWESOME birthday gift. Except, we looked it up online to discover that it had been cancelled. :( Terrible, I know. So instead we are going to go to a play the same night (Oct 3rd) in SLC and make a weekend out of it as it is Dev's birthday the next day. We will stay in SLC and go to conference the next day as well. So that will still be fun.

Later that night, some of my beloved friends came over to eat cake and ice cream with me.

This is Jenn and her fiancee, Thomas. They are getting married November 8th in San Diego. They are really hoping I can either hold off having the baby or have her late so that I can make it for the big day. Just kidding...that would be awesome, but it is never gonna happen!

Jill, one of my best friends from forever, me, and Ashley. Okay, I know I am definitely looking large and in charge in this picture. EEK. Oh, the joys of being pregnant and looking at yourself in pictures.
My hilarious cousin Che' and her husband Landon also arrived. Che would not let me take a normal picture of her because she had waxed her face or something. Let me just tell you, once when I was probably 16 years old, I let Che' bleach my hair. Horrible mistake! It turned out orange on top and yellow everywhere else. Yes, in fact I was turning 16 years old because I was supposed to go on my first date that weekend to the homecoming dance with the person of my dreams (or so I thought) and my hair was atrocious!!!! I didn't go to school for days and finally had to have someone strip it and redo everything. Moral of the story...don't let Che' NEAR YOU with anything beauty related. Just kidding woman... kind of.

We played a nice round of Yahtzee with Che' and Landon. Guess who won? Not me. But Landon lost worse. While we played, they decided they wanted a snack, so of all things, they went for plain lettuce and ranch dressing. Both said it was delicious. Okay, crazies.
My sister and Chris also arrived late that night. I was so happy they came, it made my night. Chris had to be to the Hunstman in the morning for chemo, so they were just going to stay in SLC, but they knew it was important to me to see them on my birthday, so they came all the way. I failed to take any normal pictures of them, of course, but I did get this gem of them sleeping on the air mattress.
We got up at the crack of dawn the next day as they had to be on the road. We had a family classic for breakfast, Eggs Golden Rod. I love it. But, I only got pictures after we were done eating, and only of Chris. Jen and I were not presentable at that hour.

As Jen and I loaded the car, she told Chris to start making his way toward the door. We came back in to find him like this, shoving cake in his face with his hands as fast as he could. Don't worry Chris, next time just tell us you want some cake, and you can sure have some! It was really funny. Chris is such a trooper. Anyway, now that this birthday post is a novel, I think I will sign off! Thanks everyone for the calls, texts, coming over etc...and especially to my Devin and Jen and Chris for making the day extra special.