Birthday

This weekend I turned 28. I know that it seems silly, but it honestly feels so much closer to 30, that it is really strange. I have a feeling that I will be one of those people to who 30 is a big, strange birthday. There is the added weird feeling where I remember not so long ago that I expected to be a mother by 26... and here I am at 28 and still not one. I know that time is coming, but it is an interesting feeling all the same as just another reminder of how much time has passed since we first decided that we were ready. At the same time, Blake and I have had multiple conversations about how we are glad that we haven't been parents for the last couple years. Also, though we said we were ready, I think it is only just now that Blake is getting to where I was years ago, where he is looking forward to that time, not just accepting that it was time.

Anyways, so far I have celebrated with two out of three groups. I will be celebrating with Blake's family in a few weeks. My first celebration was last Monday, April 2 with my students. My room mom went above and beyond to make my day special. When I arrived, the room was completely decorated with bright spring decorations. Across my window was a huge happy birthday banner, and my desk had a tablecloth and a beautiful bouquet of flowers on it. It truly made me smile when I entered my room that day.

When I saw her a little later, she gave me my favorite coffee drink, my favorite breakfast treat, and my favorite candy bar. Later that day, they had a cake and had the kids sing. Then she gave me a class gift of a script card (where I can get my choice of a bunch of different gift cards with) and a card that the class had signed, and we ate the very tasty cake she brought. It was more than a room mom had done for me in a bunch of years, it was very special.

On Saturday, I had dinner with my husband, parents, and my brother and sister in law.

It was a wonderful dinner, both with the company and the food. There were a bunch of other people that were invited to join us, but for various reasons couldn't make it, but honestly I found out yet again on Saturday just how much I love my immediate family, and appreciate their company and their presence at special events. I was impressed with Amy's bravery for trying the anchovies that come with the ceasar salad that Blake loves, but no one else ever eats, even if she didn't like them like Blake does, she gets credit for trying. I loved the scallops that I had as my main dish, I have honestly never had such good scallops before, and I order them a lot. I had a tasty cheese plate, but the real highlight was the dessert course.

For the dessert course, the Loft brought me a beautiful dessert:


It was tasty, but I think my sister in law, Amy, got the best dessert at the table (which I can say with some authority since I tasted almost everyone's desserts that night), and it was the most exciting to watch too.



It was this chocolate shell that had passionfruit ice cream over a passionfruit cake inside, and they poured this syrup over the chocolate shell to melt it so you could eat all of the delicious treats inside, and it was so good I would go back there just for that!

Blake had a pear dessert, which was beautiful, but in my opinion, the taste was not as good as the passion fruit dessert.

It has been fun being celebrated, and I look forward to my third and final birthday celebration in a few weeks.

Oh, and the gourmet cooking continues:

Last night, we made our own fish sticks with part of the breading having bacon crumbled in it (like we saw on iron chef a few nights ago). We had that with some steamed broccoli that we tossed with lemon juice, Dijon mustard, and green onions that was also really good.