My next 30 years

My birthday has come and gone. And now I'm 30. It seems kind of anti-climatic, but I had a great week of festivities. It started last week when we went to Matt's family's house for dinner. We wanted to celebrate Father's Day with Matt's dad since we were going to be going to my family's for Father's Day. But they decided to surprise me with a little birthday celebration. It was great! We even had an eclair birthday cake! Then on Monday, my student assistant put balloons up in my office to be enjoyed all week long.

I also wanted to celebrate with my friends, so on my birthday eve we went to Red Robin. It was so great...I love my friends so much and I really miss seeing them a couple times a week like I did when we were back in the singles ward. It was such a great ward and we had the best group of friends there. So it was fun to hang out with them again. Plus, I just really love Red Robin.

On my actual birthday, I went and got a pedicure with my sister. I also told Matt that I really wanted to go on a real date. He asked me what that meant and I said that it meant that he planned something fun for us to do and just told me when he was picking me up, and I didn't have to worry about any of it. And it had to be something different than just going to dinner.

So he took me to the zoo! I have been wanting to take a small child to the zoo for like 6 years, but every time we try to find a small child to take with us, it never works out. So Matt decided that we just needed to go anyway. It was fun!

Neither of us had been to the zoo since we were like 11. They had a new baby elephant that was so cute.

I managed to spill a grape snow cone all over myself. Oops!

We saw pretty much everything they had. I wondered where the lions and polar bears went? They used to have them?

We are such dorks!

Matt gave me a stuffed Nala lion for my present. I love it so much. It has a great story behind it. A long time ago, back when we were just friends, a bunch of us were going down to St. George for our very first triathlon. On the drive we were talking about which Disney character everyone was most like. Matt decided that I was most like Nala from Lion King because he said that I was tough, yet fun and playful, helped people to do things that they wouldn't otherwise have done, and encouraged people to be the best they could be. I thought that was so sweet.

So....Happy Birthday to me! I love celebrations and I love celebrating my birthday!