Birthday Festvities Part II

 Aiming to get my thirties off to the right start, I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30 on the morning of my birthday and headed to the gym. When I got home, my husband, the one who normally struggles to get out of bed by 8:30, was beginning birthday breakfast preparations. By the time I was out of the shower, he was plating up French toast and scrambled eggs. It was delicious and the perfect way to start the day.

{Excuse the horrible picture. I only had patience enough for one snap before digging in.}

 Breakfast, however, wasn't my only present of the morning. After clearing the plates (I know! Cooked for and cleaned up after...I could get used to this), Tom handed me a gift bag. After digging through the tissue paper, I pulled out a fancy new 70-300mm lens for my camera!

{Please excuse my crazy, wonky-eyed stare...red-eye correction doesn't always improve a photo.}

At this point, all I wanted to do was go on safari and use my new lens to take all sorts of pictures of distant, unsuspecting creatures. Sadly, I had to go to school, and for some reason, the administration frowns on teachers lurking in the shadows and taking pictures of the students with a telephoto lens. So I went off to school where a student from last year popped into my classroom to wish me a happy birthday. How she remembered, I have no idea, but it was a lovely surprise. My first class sang me happy birthday, flowers arrived at lunch from Husband of the Year, and my normally rowdy last class of the day took it easy on me because news of my birthday had apparently made the rounds. All in all, I didn't half mind working on my birthday.

{Getting flowers at work is the best.}

After school, I went home to prepare for dinner at an undisclosed location. And by prepare, I mean I painted my nails while watching Oprah. Tom arrived an hour or so after me with yet more flowers (calla lilies this time) and a bottle of the same bottle that he brought with him the first time he came to visit me five years ago. I'm tell you, this guy is good.

Just as we were about to head out the door for dinner, Tom finally revealed our destination - Bertrand at Mr. A's. I had been wanting to go there forever, so I was incredibly excited! Mr. A's is one of those fancy pants restaurants that always makes the list of San Diego's best fine dining establishments, so we definitely needed an excuse to make a visit. Turns out that turning thirty is as good an excuse as any.

{Pre-dinner Champagne toast at the bar.}

Before ordering (but after opening the wine, naturally), Tom presented me with yet another thoughtful gift. After what must have been hours of combing through the thousands (?) of pictures that I've taken over the last year, he put together a sixty-plus page book of a representative sample. It was the perfect gift. Knowing me as he does, he figured that I would want to have an album to commemorate the (attempt at) a year of daily photos but that I would procrastinate and put it off until it no longer seemed worth the effort...sad, but true. It was really fun to go through the book and recall the day that I took each picture. The pages of the book are organized by theme and are also a great reminder of some of the things on checked off of my list over the last year.

As if the book hadn't made me weepy enough, Tom had also thrown all of the birthday cards I had been waiting to open into the gift bag on our way out the door. As I opened the cards and read the incredibly sweet and thoughtful words of my closest friends, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed with gratitude for the amazing women who I am fortunate enough to call my friends. 

Dinner was long and lovely. We had an appetizer of grilled prawns and king crab legs over an avocado and papaya carpaccio. I told you - fancy pants. Then I had a butternut squash and scallop risotto and Tom had rack of lamb. After dinner we lingered over an extra glass of wine and a Happy Birthday dessert plate.

{Sorry for another lousy picture - I was trying not to embarrass myself too much by setting off my flash in the middle of the fancy restaurant.}

Before calling it a night, we went out to the patio to enjoy Mr. A's famous views.

I couldn't have asked for a better kick-off to my third decade. Once you turn thirty, every night is like this, right?

Birthday Review - Part I

When I sat down to write this, I fully intended to wrap up the birthday week with a short recap of all the festivities and a few reflections thrown in for good measure. Then I spent almost an hour working on a recap of all the awesome that was the day before my birthday, so I decided that I would have to turn the birthday sage into a multi-part series. This seems more than a little self-indulgent, but what isn’t self-indulgent about writing about yourself non-stop for a year? It’s been a big build-up to thirty, and I’m going to give the event its due. So there.

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On Birthday Eve, Tom and I headed to my parents’ for birthday/engagement celebrations. There was champagne and wine and a delicious celebratory dinner of seared tuna, grilled asparagus, Greek salad, and of course, birthday cake à la Ben and Jerry’s mode.

Following dinner, Tom and I were presented with ridiculously generous birthday gifts. I suspect that this was a purposeful attempt to lessen the crushing despair that is sure to come when we truly realize that our twenties are behind us. I kid, my parents made fairly convincing arguments that the thirties are great, and Mo even pretended that she’s looking forward to them. Whatever the motivation, it was an embarrassment of riches.

Mo presented me with a gift certificate to the Intimacy boutique, home of the illustrious Bra Whisperer. Not only does the Bra Whisperer have the Oprah stamp approval, she trained under the Queen of England's Royal Bra Fitter! [Editor’s Note: That last fact was taken from an article titled “Bra Whisperer is San Diego’s Breast Friend,” so judge the credibility as you will.] I am more excited than I should admit to go find out if I am among the 85% of women currently wearing the wrong bra size!

{Tell me all your secrets Bra Whisperer.}

[image credit]

I was still riding high on thoughts of meeting Oprah’s bra guru when I unwrapped the first box from my parents. Months ago, I asked my mom if, for my thirtieth birthday, Tom and I could use a week of their timeshare trade program, so I was stoked to unwrap a voucher for just that. As I’ve said before, my passport is getting restless, so I was so excited to be able to start thinking about possible destinations. There were, however, still two presents left to open, one for me and one for Tom. We unwrapped them to find a pretty, suede travel jewelry case and an international adaptor respectively.  Being a huge fan of the theme gift, I was impressed – well done, Mom!  Then I opened the case, and Tom looked more closely at the paper his adaptor had been wrapped in. These cute, travel-themed gifts came with vouchers for airfare as well! I could not have been more surprised/overwhelmed/speechless with gratitude. 

 It looks like my passport is going to have a lot less to complain about in the very near future! Needless to say, the last night of my twenties was filled with happy, hopeful dreams of all of the travel possibilities to come next year and in all the years that follow. Thanks again, Mom and Dad. Not just for the gifts, but also for instilling in me a love of travel adventures. I don’t know how I got so lucky.

{My family rocks. I can't wait until we are six (er...nine!) again.}

Birthday Month Continues

On Sunday, Tom and I headed to my parents' place so that we could be showered with more birthday love. My sisters and I decorated our parent's tree before a delicious birthday of grilled shrimp and steak. I dodged the reflection question over dinner but did spill the beans about the blog and some of the other things on the yet-to-be completed list.

After dinner, my always-generous family pulled out all the stops. My sisters saw to it that I will have luscious lashes and dewy skin as I sip my favorite tea from a lovely, perfectly-sized mug, and my parents gifted me with a copy of the Christmas classic that I had mentioned just the other day (maybe they were already reading!). I was already feeling like I had scored big time in the birthday gift department, not to mention the family lottery, when I opened a second gift from my parents...

Ta da!

I am so excited to enter the realm of digital SLR photography! Sadly, the camera holds no magical powers, and I did not transform me into Annie Lebowitz overnight despite the fact that I slept with the manual under my pillow. It will definitely take some work to learn how to take full advantage of everything my new friend can do, but I am really looking forward to getting to know....her. I'll have to work on a name.

In any event, my lovely husband knew how anxious I was to start playing with the camera, so while I was at school yesterday, he ran out and picked up a 4 gig memory card. As I am buried in grading this finals week, all I could manage yesterday was a picture of said work.

Today I managed to get a little farther from the kitchen table when Tom and I walked to the library so that I could pick up some books on digital photography that I plan to devour over Christmas break. It was, however, a quick walk that turned dark quickly.

Hopefully, with the practice and fancy pants new camera, the photos will start improving soon!

Every Time a Bell Rings

My wonderful husband, also a freshly minted 29-year old, showered me with birthday love today. One of my lovely gifts was the collector's edition of my favorite Christmas movie, complete with the silver bell ornament that announces Clarence's wings.

29 Candles

photo by: spoon

I've answered "Twenty-nine" to the How old are you? question several times over the past few months. Maybe that is because I have been thinking about this birthday since at least July. At least, that is when the idea for the list first started its impossible-to-ignore tap dance in my mind. 

Something about 29 seemed significant: an official goodbye to my twenties, a last chance to do the things only a twenty-something can get away with... It is also possible that I didn't want to be stuck with a shrug and a "Oh, I don't know..." as a response to my father's yearly question, "Any reflections?" Hell yes, I have reflections! This time next year? I'm going to have reflections that will knock your socks off.

 

 photo by: kevindooley

In any event, this is my first step toward crossing thirty things off of my life to-do list before I turn 30...in exactly 365 days. One of my goals is to take  one picture every day for a year. These aren't mine, but they qualify as inspiration. So it begins.