Thirty-one

Today was my 31st birthday. Ramy, Rebecca, and my mom made it a lovely day for me. We started out the day with breakfast at Bravo Burger, did a little shopping, and had dinner at Mi Piace in Pasadena. I made my own birthday cake yesterday - white cake with caramel icing. I had intended to make homemade ice cream as well, but I didn't remember to stick the freezer mechanism in the freezer until last night and then just didn't get the mix made up today. We enjoyed the cake and store-bought ice cream though. Rebecca proclaimed, "Dat's good keek [cake]!" The highlight of my day was possibly Rebecca singing "Happy Birthday" to me in her sweet little voice. She was, however, hysterical when other people sang it to me. I have no idea why that terrifies her, but it does. She freaked out at her own birthday party when everyone sang to her. She would start crying just watching video of her birthday party. And she's gotten tearful at other birthday parties when it has been sung. Maybe she's picked up her dad's loathing of being sung to, rather than my own enjoyment of limelight. Regardless, it was a wonderful day.

I'm happy to have another year of life, and I will never complain about getting older! I have purchased some anti-aging foundation though, so Geritol may not be far behind.


This isn't my actual birthday cake, of which I didn't actually take a picture. Rather, this was what they brought me at Mi Piace. Isn't it pretty? Rebecca blew out the candle for me. In respect for global warming, only one candle rather than 31.




We have had a very busy and fun long weekend. My mom arrived on Wednesday night. Thursday, we visited my mom's cousin Linda in Redlands. Actually, Rebecca and my mom visited her while I had a meeting at LLU, then we went to lunch with her. Friday, we went shopping at Santa Anita (yes, right next to the racetrack where Seabiscuit raced.) It was critical that we do some shopping at Janie and Jack, of course. We ate at Rebecca's favorite - California Pizza Kitchen, AKA CPK. Rebecca mixes up the acronym a bit and calls it "see-kee-pay." Saturday, we spent many many hours at Disneyland! I've got a ton of pictures to edit and I'll most more about our day then. Sunday, we were all tired from our long day at Disneyland and planned to sleep in and go to a later mass. Rebecca, however, was wide awake at 7:00 a.m., asking for cereal and wanting to watch Mickey on television. I tried sleeping on the couch while she watched television but wasn't too successful in that venture! My mom goes back to Tennessee tomorrow. Hopefully there won't be any meltdown when Rebecca knows Grammy is leaving with Mommy and she isn't going. Last time, we were low key about it, and she was fine.