Nicole's 30th Birthday

I have been so excited about turning 30. I feel somehow relieved to be done with my 20s. They were great and all but I feel like my 20s were a lot of work and now I feel ready to live my life. Yeah, 30s will be great. For the last 5 years I have been telling Sandy that I really like suprises especially for my birthday. Sandy has attempted small suprises in the past and has done pretty well at keeping them. He just is such a gifter that he has a hard time containing gifts. This year he did amazingly well. So, here's the story. I took my birthday off of work to get ready for the Olympics. I worked on making cupcakes and decorating the windows. I had been working on the front window for awhile. At about noon, I told Sandy that I was getting hungry and asked if he was ready to go get lunch. He said he wasn't hungry and said that he wanted to wait. I said, "ok", but was thinking.."it's my birthday and I'm hungry." But I decided to let it go - we may as well eat at home because I knew we were going out for dinner that night. I continued working on the front window. Then Sandy said, "I think you need to sit down with Addi (who was eating lunch) and take a break." Well, I was a little more ticked, but went and sat down. I looked at him like, "Ok, now I'm sitting....hmph" The phone rang. It was Amy. She wished me a happy birthday. I was trying to chat with her, but was distracted by the doorbell. I asked if someone would get it. Mom and Sandy didn't move. Now, I was really annoyed...I mean sheesh. So, I went to open the door and hurray it was John and Amy. I screamed and cried a little to be perfectly honest. They were such a perfect suprise. Sandy had kept them a secret for six weeks. ( He said it almost killed him :-) And then I had to apologize to Sandy for having a bad attitude. They came in, got the tour and then we went to lunch :-)
Sandy and Jon took naps and played some video games while Amy let me drag her around Walla Walla. So, we ran some errands and came home in time to get ready for our fancy dinner. We discovered that rich people sit really far apart from each other at restaurants and they eat really good food :-) Then we came back to the house for cake and presents. They had brought a vegan cake from Sweet Life in Eugene. Lemon poppyseed with raspberry goodness...yumm! Here are the photos of the best suprise ever!!!

Prepping the decorations for tomorrow's Walla Walla Olympic Ceremonies.

Out to lunch at Stone Soup. It worked out that

Anthony Kaufman was there having lunch too.

Thanks for taking our picture Anthony.

So, Walla Walla has a very lively artists presence.

We have a lot of statues of all kinds of things downtown.

Here's the dog balancing a brick, lemon and walnut on it's nose...

oh yeah and Amy and I on it's back.

Jon and Amy ready for dinner.

All dolled up

Nicole and Sandy

I love this picture. Jon was making his "people take too many pictures" face

and Amy had just flipped her hair. (Sorry Amy, but I LOVE this photo.)

Ah, now the cute one.

Here's the yummy Sweet Life cake.

Amy made a chain of 9 monkeys. Good job Amy.

Then Jon made a chain of all of the monkeys.

Better job Jon.

Cake time

Presents

Very pretty bracelet from Jon and Amy (an Emily Rose creation..hurray).

Practicing the Wii

Jon flying like a bird.

I have to pay a lot of attention when I slalom.

These next pictures are Saturday pictures.

Mom and I getting ready for the party.

I love this picture. Jon and Sandy with their

gaming faces on.

Today, we heard Adalie in the monitor. It sounded like she was jumping in her crib and walking around. Then it got really quiet. Every once in awhile she would say a little something, but she was pretty much quiet. Then I heard a noise that I didn't recognize, so I went in to check on her. She had pulled some books off of the shelf by her crib and was reading to herself in the dark. Now she pretty much does it every nap time, which I think is great! She wakes up happy!Addi helping us clean up.

Adalie helping me make cupcakes.