Birthdays past.

Yesterday was one of the best birthdays ever.  I am still putting together the "party post", so if you haven't sent your pictures, there is still time!  I think it is going to be great.

I have had some AMAZING birthdays.  I have been really blessed with some fantastic people in my life that have made sure that I always have a good day.

My first memory I have of my birthday is when I was six or seven, I went to dinner and bowling with my dad(I am not sure it was really a birthday, but in my mind it was).  It was a big deal, because at the time my dad was travelling a lot, and not home very often.  I dressed up in a new sweater and I remember hoping that I looked nice so he would be proud of me.

The next memory I have is when I was twelve.  My parents and I went to dinner just the three of us (a big treat with five siblings) to Olive Garden.  My mom gave me my very first piece of jewelry worth any money.  It was a beautiful pearl necklace that is still in my mom's jewelry box. 

When I was fifteen, I had a surprise party that I helped plan.  Oh, that was fun.  When I turned sixteen I could finally drive and date.   I was able to get my license really quickly, but I didn't date for a few months (not by choice, I just wasn't asked.)  When I was seventeen we lived in Moscow, and again, my dad took me out to dinner.  The next day I went to London for a school trip.  When I turned eighteen, it was my first year at college.  My roommate Anja, and a few other friends arranged for the radio station to play an announcement that it was my birthday.  Talk about feeling special.  I loved it.  When I turned nineteen, I was in Moscow again, but I don't remember what I did.  I have blocked out my twentieth birthday for several reasons.   Twenty-one, I was preparing to go on a mission, and spent a quiet day at home.  I was supposed to go to dinner with some friends a few days later, but do you remember the sniper in the DC area?  Well he was around then, so we cancelled.  It was a good thing too, there was a shooting in the parking lot near the restaurant we were planning to go.  When I turned twenty-two I was on my mission, and it was a preparation day, I went to ice cream and had two cakes from different people that I was meeting with (no wonder I gained so much weight on my mission).  When I turned twenty-three I sat across from Ben at school.  A week later he asked me out on our first date.  Twenty-four, Ben and I had been married for just four months, and I was madly in love with my him, and he bought me a ring, which I wore everyday until he replaced it with this.
The next year was quite a tough year for me.  Ben and I had tuition, car repairs and medical bills, so we had to save up for my birthday and celebrated by going to dinner at Rodizio Grill in Salt Lake.



Rodizio Grill for my 25th birthday.



Twenty-six, Jack was just two and a half months old, and we were packing up our stuff to begin Ben's job with the State Department.  Twenty-seven, I was in Utah.  Ben was busy with UNGA (United Nations General Assembly), so Jack and I went to visit family.  Twenty-eight, was awesome, Thomas was two and a half months old, I had cupcakes from one of my favorite places in NYC and Ben surprised me with this.

Here we are, all caught up on birthdays gone by.  Aren't you excited to find out what happened this year?