My birthday! Hooray!

Lisa bought me chocolate milk and a chocolate doughnut for breakfast, David got me a hippo card and a gift certificate, Bruce took David and me out to lunch at the Olive Garden and, best of all, MamaLynne told me about the first time they met me (her version of a birth story, I guess!). I also chatted a little with my birth mom. Mostly, though, I just worked.

Heather bought me a little stuffed red panda (the best animal EVER). I went to Dru's baby shower, then left early for dinner and then Heather and I went to see Pirates! Band of Misfits because I love dry British humor but it was way funnier than I imagined it was going to be. Heather and I laughed through the whole show.

It was a fantastic day.

D'Nell, Lisa, Heather and I went to This American Life's live showing (well, live in NYC but broadcast to theaters). It was SO COOL. Clearly no pictures in the theater, but here is my ticket after the show. Also I need to clean my desk...

We celebrated my birthday at Cheesecake Factory (a few days early since that worked best for the family). Giselle sat next to me and chattered the whole time. Jenny made me pajama pants that match ones Giselle has. Ziggy played with MamaLynne's phone; she just bought a new app that lets you take movies and then "blow up" the screen in the movies. He was giddy over the app and had to show it to everyone.

I was feeling uninspired (that happens far too often!) as far as picture-taking goes. Instead I sent my camera with Heather and Lisa when they went for a walk and I got back this picture taken by Heather. And I love it!

Have I mentioned I love my emerald rings? I do! Because they are my birth stone. One is from my mom and the other belonged to my grandma so they are sentimental as well. I keep them on top of my jewelry case with all my perfumes and Moroccan Oil.

For Melanie's birthday we went to Costa Vida and then across the street to a store to look around while they waited for their movie to start.

Melanie is rocking her birthday in style.

MamaLynne made me chocolate sauce and we had some vanilla ice cream left over, so I intended to eat it, but then I stuck it in the microwave and forgot about it. Oops!

I opened the microwave back up when I heard a pop and got to see my chocolate everywhere.

Luckily for me I'd made pancakes earlier (Trader Joe's Pumpkin!) and it required melted butter and the butter had also spilled all over and I hadn't yet cleaned that up so with the layer of butter, the chocolate was a breeze to clean up.

Also it was still as delicious as always.

Nathan and I went to City Creek after I got off work since I hadn't been yet. We spent a short time walking around looking at things, had dinner at Blue Lemon and then sat and talked while watching children in the splash pad -- but in a non-creepy way. There was a little boy who kept trying to drink from the water holes and then the water sprayed directly in his mouth and he was soaked. It was fantastic. Also there was a little boy dressed like a monster (seriously, so cute!) and as soon as he saw the water he bolted over. His parents stopped him in time, though, for which we were disappointed. They also have a gorgeous fountain that shoots fire every so often.

When the fire show was done, we parted ways and went home, but I'm glad I've now seen City Creek!

Giselle turned four today. She had a Rapunzel party and two of her little girl cousins came over for it. They dressed like princesses, colored, twirled around the room and had a great time opening gifts.

I took tons of pictures at the party, but I like this one because Giselle was looking up at me explaining that she was sitting like a princess and then laughing over all the fun things that were planned. She was just delighted with it all and I loved being there!

I took my new Abraham Lincoln nutcracker to work. He know hangs on the wall behind me. I bet he and Joseph Smith Nutcracker would be great friends!

Heather doesn't work on Mondays so she did laundry. Being nice and knowing I was having an off day, she decided to stick my laundry, specifically towels, in with hers. Unfortunately she washed my decorative towels that I haven't used once. Which is fine, it didn't hurt them, but she said she felt dumb over her good deed being less awesome thank planned. I just found it funny.

MamaLynne brought a toy home from work -- it's a little building that explodes apart when you open it. I'm sad I didn't get Ziggy's reaction (at that point I didn't know what was coming!) because he was stunned for a second and then startled. Giselle at least knew what was coming and wisely closed her eyes.

And isn't her outfit great? She's wearing one of my old shirts (that has a bleach stain, though, to be honest, I doubt it fits me any more), one of Grandma's necklaces and some stick-on earrings we found while cleaning out the sewing room.

Heather and I met Melanie and Julie for dinner at PF Changs. Julie's kids were camping with their uncle and grandpa and clearly we're always free so it was a perfect girls dinner night.

I think they were trying to show me how hard it is to eat the lettuce wraps -- hard enough that Melanie goes cross-eyed when she tries to get them in her mouth.

My favorite Casey is coming to Utah! I'm so excited to see her again. I think the last time we saw each other was before she went on her mission and we were dress shopping and tried the Sister Missionary Mall. At the mall, they had a perfume called "Sweet Spirit" and I tried it on. Oh my gosh, I have never smelled anything more horrible in my life. I wonder what kind of person created it....

She asked me if I wanted to see The Secret Garden at HCTO when she comes, which I did. I'd even been hoping to find someone to go with me! Apparently she's friends with people in the cast and the names sounded familiar so I had to pull out my old programs to find out why -- they were in The Scarlet Pimpernel! Casey has the coolest friends and I'm glad I keep my old programs at work.

The guys in our office bought us bags of chocolate for Administrative Professionals Day, which was the sweetest (pun intended) thing ever! Ken pointed out that my ribbon was purple since I'm always asking him to change programs to be purple.

I bought this book of Pulitzer Prize Photographs from the Newseum because it was going to inspire me to be a better photographer, but then we got home late and couldn't sleep because the house was really hot and then back to work....Anyway, I've apparently not changed my ways for the better!

Allie, Heather, Nathanial and I had a very chill day of packing, lunch and then frozen yogurt before heading back to the airport. On our way to the airport, Allie took us past the DC Temple, which I'd never been to. It was still rainy and cold, so we didn't walk around, but we did go in the visitor's center and that was good enough.

After church Heather and I planned to go to Arlington, but the metro stop there was closed. Instead we went to Ford's Theater (here is Heather in front of the infamous theater box), had lunch at a Chinese restaurant that was once the boarding house where Lincolns assassination was plotted, and went home for game night. It rained ALL DAY. We were so cold!

Heather and I went to the Newseum, which was SO COOL. This is the 9/11 exhibit with an antenna that was on top of one of the World Trade Centers and behind it are front pages from newspapers all over the world.

Clearly I did not take this picture. We met some Chinese people in front of the White House and they asked me to take their picture, so I counted to three in Chinese and they all laughed. This was also Nathanial's first White House visit! Tender!

We also looked at more awesome things, walked through some occupy protester camps and met Carl for dinner.

Day one of touring. Allie and Nathanial accompanied us to all kinds of museums. Allie then walked us up to the capitol (it was very bright) and she went home and Chance gave us a tour. Then Heather and I went to eat, more museums and then home with Chance to see Jenny and have dinner.

I didn't take a lot of pictures because I went to work, came home, and Dad picked Heather and me up to take us to the airport so we could fly to Baltimore and see my FAVORITE ALLIE EVER! Flights are so much easier to handle when I sleep through them, but when I was awake, Heather and I played the trivia game on our TV things. We were....not very good at trivia.

The neighbors have these gorgeous flowers growing on their side of the entry way. It makes the archway to our front door look magical. I love their tulips the most.

Heather and I went to my office Spring Workshop in Goshen, UT. We started off with breakfast at IHOP then dropping Heather's car at the dealership. We were about an hour early at that point so we also stopped by Jenny's house where Heather and Gigi had a dance party. I love Giselle's morning hair!

The workshop was fun, too. We went to the Jerusalem set but they asked us not to post pictures. I don't even know why I bothered bringing my camera!

I went to my parents house where Giselle and I watched Wonderpets. She got bored after two episodes, but we were in the middle of a third episode where the baby penguin needed help so I had to see how it ended.

Also there was an episode where a unicorn is stuck and there's a dragon and the wonderpets are scared of the dragon and trying to hide from him and it turns out the dragon is the unicorn's friend and he's super nice. I tried to tell Giselle, "See, that's like Hero! She looks scary but she's so loving and just wants to play with you and give you kisses." She responded, "But I'm scared of dogs!"

Giselle did not catch the analogy.

It rained and rained and rained...which is probably good because we have a gaggle (correct term?) of birds that live above our driveway and when I have to park my car in the driveway it's not pretty. So that happened and I've been too lazy to get my car washed. Well, now that's clean at least!

Too bad I had to take this picture at the stoplight while in my car with a bus coming up along side me (about to blog the view). The sun on the porch of the Lion house was gorgeous and inviting and I wanted to just sprawl out there and take a nap.

I went to pick Jenny up so we could go speak on an adoption panel for my friend Colette.

First, though, I should mention I had a root canal earlier in the afternoon and laughing gas, while I love it and it relaxes me, leaves me feeling a bit drugged for the rest of the day. So there was that.

Jenny gave me an invitation to Giselle's birthday party. Gigi keeps inviting Heather to her party, so we had to make sure Heather's name was on there, of course, so Gigi wrote it (she wouldn't write my name, it was too hard, but Heather, aside from the "h" has all the same letters as Giselle's name (which is actually Taelor)).

After she was done writing, I asked her to make the kind of face that would make Heather want to go to her birthday party. This is what we ended up with.

And the adoption panel was way fun. Sorry to Colette if I ACTED drugged. I really felt it!

Nicole and I decided to do street cart lunch. Paul recommended The Curryer on 3rd South and Main. The naan was great, but the chicken tiki marsala was just average. Granted, I've never been a tiki marsala fan (the other options were all vegetarian, so I loved those less). It wasn't bad, though, so we''re going to go back when they are doing coconut chicken.

I decided to make a Spanish Tortilla for dinner but with red peppers because you can never go wrong with red peppers. Heather kept asking me when the tortilla part would come in (o:

Other than the fact that I apparently have no flipping skills, it tasted fine, but wasn't nearly as pretty as it could have been.

Next I want to try a paella. Except...where does one get saffron?

When I was younger, I started a charm bracelet. Except I would travel and never find charms I liked or I would forget to look. My bracelet has maybe 10 charms on it.

When I met my birth dad, he gave me a charm bracelet that used to belong to his mother. It has SO MANY CHARMS and I absolutely adore and treasure it. I keep it on my dresser so I can look at it every day.

Heather mentioned she needed her oil changed. I realized I never really think about those things so I decided to check the little sticker on my windshield. Don't even worry, it's only been a year and a half (and over 10,000 miles) since my last oil change!

I've lived here all my life, but I still can't help but find the Wasatch mountains to be breathtaking.

I, along with my coworkers, spend the day in Midway at the Area Director convention. Joanne, Melody and I were running an HR table where we gave away books and candy leis for Area Directors who spun our Wheel of HR and answered the questions.

I've never gone before (for various reasons) and so it was really nice to meet some of my favorite Area Directors. Mark Macdonald spun our wheel, won our prize and did a hero pose.

I LOVED being at that table. I'm kind of excited for next year.

After my bad day yesterday (I still felt sick), Heather took me to lunch at the Pie Hole! I've been craving pizza and wanting to go there, so it was perfect.

Heather's pizza (which was chicken, cilantro and other things I don't remember) was REALLY good until I hit the cilantro (which ruins everything) and mine (which was red peppers and basil) was amazing until I hit a VERY HOT pepper. I'm trying to build up my tolerance to hot things but I'm not quite there yet.

I would most likely go back, but maybe I would order something safe like cheese.

Heather is so nice! It definitely helped with my sickness-induced bad mood!

Welcome to my new arch-nemesis, the lock.

I had antibiotics my dentist gave me and I needed to take them four times a day (which clearly means I would be taking some at work). Around 10:30 (when I planned to take my second dose of the day), I realized I'd left the pills at home. I would have skipped it, but I wanted to feel better since I've been fevery, dizzy and nauseous. I took MamaLynne's car (remembering to stop by my car to get the garage door opener) and drove home. I opened the garage and....the door from the garage to the house was locked. My keys were in my car back at the office.

Growing up my parents NEVER locked that door, so it throws me off every time because I just never expect it.

Add to that I felt horrible (really, really horrible) and it was the Worst Thing Ever. I wanted to give up and go back to bed, but I couldn't do that because I was locked out. Instead I did the next-best thing and cried driving back to work.

Worst day ever!

Snow in the mountains and flowers in the valley. I love living in the valley!

I also went to the dentist a week ago and got a root canal redone (because they missed some of the roots before). Except now it's infected (well, it was infected before, but the infection is SPREADING so I spent the last week being dizzy and tired) and he gave me antibiotics to fight it. Exciting, expensive times.

Dad and MamaLynne picked us up for the Sunday Morning session of Conference (hence my traditional post-conference photo). Then I watched the afternoon session at their house. Their downstairs TV was broken so we watched it in their room. I had Mom on one side of me, Dad in the recliner on the other and within five minutes I was surrounded by snoring. Sunday Afternoon is always so hard.

I was getting all ready for conference note-taking and picture-editing, but then instead I watched upstairs while eating -- which is another good way to spend the day.

My way in to work....

There were SO many Mormons downtown! Conference!