30th birthday

I don't have many pictures from my birthday, which is quite sad because it was amazing.  I felt so incredibly loved.  It started with a birthday lunch that my dear friend Sarah arranged for me.  Cafe Plaid, during the day, with some of my closest friends.  Kerri made these incredible peanut butter chocolate cupcakes that topped off the already amazing lunch.  I spent the rest of the day with Sarah Kopke before she headed back to the Middle East.  Man, a few hours set aside to hang with Sarah- more of that please!  So so fun.

The next day I came home from a long day at work, and my mother-in-law walked in our house.  Jake looked at me and told me to get dressed for dinner.  I found out we were going to my favorite restaurant The Mantel in Oklahoma City.  I was pumped.  I love this place....but I was quite surprised when we walked in, and Jake said "I have reservations for Jake" and they replied with "for 16?"  What???  Dinner birthday with some of our friends.  So so fun!  I was so surprised and felt so blessed that my friends would take an evening to drive to the city to eat a fancy dinner with us.  It was incredible.  Then I came home to my extravagant husband's birthday gift...no, let me rephrase- my extravagant husband's 30 birthday gifts, complete with a reason why he loves me to match each gift.  I was truly overwhelmed.  He loves me so incredibly well.  He put so much time and thought into my birthday.  I am so blessed by him.

So after all of that amazing celebration, we headed off to three days in Mexico.  It was awesome.  We were so thankful for my mom and mother-in-law who watched Anniston while we were gone- we knew she was in good hands which allowed us to go and have fun.  Three days of doing nothing- sleeping, walking on the beach, eating good food, reading books, talking...it was perfect....but what was so fun was that we were flying back and Jake says "it's amazing what loving my job and loving my daughter can do to you- I'm not dreading going home, I can't WAIT to get back to our life in Norman".  I couldn't agree more.

This is where we spent almost all of our time...laying on our cabana that Jake reserved by setting his alarm for 6 am and going to put our stuff on it.  Such a great treat!  We just laid here and read and looked at the beautiful ocean.  So fun!

Jake's lunch- much more adventurous than anything I ate!

My idea of a great vacation...

Tuesday I got back and walked in to my office to find it filled with 30 balloons, and attached to each balloon were fun facts, clothes styles, tv shows, music, slang words, etc all from my birth year, and in the center of it all, a homemade peanut butter chocolate cake.  Amazing!

My birthday lasted for over a week and every aspect of it was so much fun.  I felt so loved and was just overwhelmed by how thankful I was.  Turning 30?  Not so bad....pretty incredible actually.