Birthday Bonanza

My birthday fell on a Sunday this year. For the past two years, Jill and I have traveled to NYC to watch the first and second parts of The Lord of the Rings trilogy at Radio City Music Hall, where the music is performed by live orchestra and choirs.

This year, the birthday "celebrating" started early. (I'll explain why "celebrating" is in quotes later). A wonderful friend of ours came over on Saturday evening once CJ had gone to sleep so that Jill and I could slip out for the evening. We decided to use another pair of our AMC passes, so we drove over to the mall to catch a late show. Jill had checked on a few before we left, and -- based on some web-crowd-sourcing -- so we decided to see Contagion.

It turned out to be an incredibly shocking and make-you-think thriller.

You know how most times you leave a great movie and there's a buzz in the theater as everyone is leaving. Not from this show. I guess the way to describe it was everyone was subdued and pensive, slowly shuffling out of the theater. I don't want to spoil the movie in case any of you might go see it; just know that you'll probably want to wash your hands every 5 minutes for the rest of your life and carry hand sanitizer at all times... Hence the "celebrate" -- it was great to get out and spend time with Jill, the movie was well-acted and intense, but it was kind of a downer.

On Sunday, I slept in, then played with CJ before her morning nap. We went to church (although CJ wasn't feeling very well so she and Jill came home early). I got to play the organ in sacrament meeting, and then substituted for the primary pianist during their run-through of the primary program today.

When I came home, Jill had been busy getting dinner ready and setting up our traditional scavenger hunt. I found this taped to the front door:

Which sent me to the Target cube that holds our Wii-motes, where I found this:

Which led me to the kitchen, where Jill recently added homemade chicken soup stock to the freezer:

Which led me to look behind the shower curtain, where I found another card with a note that said "Here's a quarter, nickel, and dime / It's just too bad it's not yours or mine".

Which led me to CJ's piggy bank where we drop in our change.

This clue was the hardest. I had to think back to a conversation Jill and I had about wanting to be more deliberate instead of accidental. The clue took me to this black box we have, that was mostly empty when we moved but somehow ended up on the floor next to the game cabinet - where it has remained. Inside I found:

CJ helped me unwrap the box. The picture below doesn't do them justice, but the one on the left is my new shoe! and the one on the right is my trusty dress shoes that I bought while working the 2008 campaign cycle. I think there's still a little life left in the old pair, but I am super excited about the spiffy new shoes to wear around my new corporate halls...

Then I opened some cards that I received in the mail. The ones below were from BYU-Idaho (a snail mail card and an e-card):

I also got a nice card from my grandparents that included some old photos of when we went to Camp Michigania when I was a wee lad. I had a blast both years I went. I think some of the younger cousins went recently; we need to swap stories.

Mom sent a card, too. She reminisced about the scavenger hunts, piñatas, and themed parties I had as a child.

My dad sent a funny card:

And I also got a card from some nieces and nephews:
(back/front)

Everybody wrote something =)
(inside)

My littlest sister, who's serving a mission in Florida for our church, sent me a funny card:
(inside it says "...Age is Relative")

I also got eCards from two Aunties:

and promptly added them to my Amazon account =) Thx Aunties!

But that's not all!

Jill put our food processor to much use today as she made some fabulous and delectable dishes for dinner and dessert.
Here she is slicing the potatoes for homemade zuppa toscana, a la Olive Garden (except better!).

She also made homemade breadsticks. Yum!

Just when I thought the evening couldn't get any better, she turned off the lights...



...started some mood music...



...and brought out a fancy, two-tiered cake that she made completely from scratch while singing Happy Birthday! (I happened to be on the phone with my dad at the time, so he joined in, too).

It was white cake with Nerds inside. Between the layers were chunks of kiwi. And it was frosted with a mango, buttercream frosting (with more Nerds).

I dove right in and quickly ate my way towards a sugar coma. Definitely ate too much, but couldn't help myself!

(Yes, Jill had some too - this wasn't just all me...) :-P

Spoke with family on the phone this evening and heard from a few friends.

All in all, a pretty incredible birthday, spent with my two favorite people.

Apparently a few things are straggling in the mail, so I look forward to extending this birthday clear through 'till Halloween ;-)

Reducto!

Organizing and minimizing. We got rid of about half of our DVD cases a few years ago, but have still been lugging around a box of movies. Consolidated all the DVDs into one zip case tonight. Freed up a spot in the bench to put other stuff. Slowly but surely getting our stuff settled in our new place.

Two months!

Can't believe our little girl is two months old!
Notes on Jill's blog; cute pic below:

One Month Old!

Aren't I so cute?

Random Photo

Or,
Jeremy's attempt at "artsy" photos...

Included only because I know at least one or two of my readers know what this stuff means:
f/3.5
1/20 sec exposure
ISO-2000
7mm focal length

Sunday Dinner, Bath, and a new Blanket

My how time flies... Can't believe our little Claudia Jean is almost two weeks old! Jill's mom--Claudia--has been out here for the past week and has been a ton of help. Our bathrooms have never been sparklier, and the magic washing machine has returned (if only temporarily).

Typically, Claudia makes dinner for about 20 hungry college students on any given Sunday. This week, the infamous "Sunday dinners" came to our house:

We had a delicious pork roast; potatoes (baked and sweet); green beans; salad with avocado; celery, cucumber, and carrots with ranch dip; Texas toast; Uncle Amron's salad (which is basically heaven in a dessert pan); and orange slices.

Don't worry, it was just the 3 4 of us - so there were lots of left-overs.

These few days were filled with some firsts:

Trying out our new swing


Getting our first bath


And a visit from two of our dear friends!

They brought some pictures Chance took of CJ

and a blanket hand made by Jenny!


We had tummy time on the blanket later, and snapped some action shots of CJ lifting up her head to turn towards her mommy.


Click HERE to see the full album, or click on the slideshow below as it cycles through.

First Days Montage

We interrupt this broadcast

...of personalized license plates -

for a photo and video recap of our Christmas 2010!


We slept in until about 8am; Jill made yummy orange rolls; we opened our stockings; took turns opening presents and taking photos; Skyped with Mom, Lindsey, and Lauren and opened more presents with them; spoke with Dad and Candace; talked to some of the Erb clan; spoke with Jill's brother who's on his mission in Texas; snacked on all sorts of yumminess; tried a fruit cake ("in the fine Southern tradition") for the first time; took a nap; had a (somewhat) healthy dinner of salad with homemade ranch and some Safeway appetizers; drove to see some Christmas lights and saw an awesome show; talked and sang carols via Google Video Chat with the Walker clan; uploaded our photos and videos; ate some popcorn; and got ready for bed!


Here are some of the still photos from the Christmas light tour. It was worth the 25 minute drive down the road to go find the neighborhood. Hooray for Google, Google Maps, and Holly's Tacky Christmas Lights list of houses to see.

The videos below won't quite do the display justice. But, in addition to attempting to capture some of the awesome Christmas lights, it was the first time using our new camera for video instead of stills. (there is an HD version / 720p of each if you click through) I think you should watch them all - but if you only pick one or two, do the Grand Finale and the Narrated Neighbor.

Ward Halloween Party

We dressed up for the party as a Bump and a Construction Worker.

Thanks to Eric and Stephanie M. for running the Photo Booth!
(from Flickr)

Used my other birthday present: a new camera! Here are some photos we snapped after trick-or-treating wrapped up and the games were happening up in the gym.


Enjoy!

Round 5

Just can't get enough of my birthday... =)
Received lots of fun cards and other gifts from family. Here are a few fun cards:

Such a sweet card from my sister

(outside)

(inside)

And, amazingly, this card from my mom was delivered. 

Despite having no stamp. Or postmark. Or return address.

(envelope)

(card)

My dad thought he sent his card late. 

Interestingly, it was the first one I received.

(outside)

(inside)

And I got other nice cards from grandparents and aunties. =)

We've been Ghosted!

We were sitting around home tonight,
just minding our business.



When we heard some eerie noises outside our window.



And who burst in the door?

Tommy P!

And Mar-Mar!

They came "ghosting" and brought us these plates of yumminess:

Too bad they couldn't stick around for very long,
but apparently our house was stinky

and there were too many boxes in the way...

What great friends!
=)

Chomp!

Round 4

I'm so special they always give me a long weekend for my birthday. I didn't have work today, but Jill did. I dropped her off, tweeted about them filming Transformers 3, went grocery shopping (used lots of coupons and saved nearly 50% at Safeway), came home and watched Future Weapons on Netflix while doing several sinks full of dishes and two loads of laundry.

Went back to get Jill from work. She took some other pictures from her building of them filming. (Will update with videos later). Made dinner while she ran to UPS to pick up two packages that failed to get delivered to our place.

Had yummy salad with some grilled steak and chipotle salsa ranch. Watched Sherlock Holmes on Netflix and started downloading our photos and documenting our experiences of the last few days.

Got an awesome new present today - I'll blog about it later. Stayed up too late blogging, and am now headed to bed.

I know some other gifts/cards are on their way from other folks. We'll keep dragging this birthday out all week if we have to ;-)

License Plates

Apparently, one of my "things" lately is to take pictures of interesting/funny/personalized license plates that I see. Here are a few recent ones.

The Marines are coming - Run for it!

Greeted by this van coming up out of Penn Station

How lame. "RAV & US" on a Toyata RAV4 SUV? Maybe it also has the double-meaning of ravenous...

Not a license plate, but a tag line that seems out of place. Allied: The Careful Movers. If your stuff doesn't fit, we'll just strap it to the back of the truck and wrap some super-sized Syran wrap around it...