surprised

Last Thursday was my 29th birthday and I had a nice enough day. Pretty standard - gym, preschool, cooking, cleaning, playing. It was a work night for David and we had decided that we would go out on Friday night instead of on my birthday so that he wouldn't have to stay up so late on a week night. He brought me home flowers and a really sweet card and I was happy with that (my birthday present this year was a new camera that I bought before we went to Europe). So, Friday night rolled around and I dropped the boys off at my sister's house and then we drove to True Food Kitchen for dinner. We put our name on the list and David said that we should got to the bathroom while we waited. I was confused because men don't usually solicit restroom companionship but David is usually interested in things like the design and architecture of bathrooms so I thought that he may have heard that their bathrooms were really cool or something. He walked through the flow of the other customer's tables to get to the back of the restaurant and I went the other way so that I wouldn't impose. I wasn't overly impressed by the bathroom but didn't think anything of it. I met him out of the bathrooms and he led me back into the flow of the tables. I momentarily resisted since I didn't want to intrude but then he pointed to a small private room in the back and asked, "Who's that?" I looked over and saw Lela's face first. My first thought was, "What is she doing here!?" and then I saw Erin, Jamie, Tessa, Brittany and Lexi and when I realized they were there for me, I lost it. Like - started bawling my eyes out.

Once I composed myself, I had such a great time with such great friends. David ordered some food to go and went home to pick up the boys while I stayed out for a really fun girls night.

We ate dinner and then walked next door to the Capital Grille for one of my favorite desserts ever - the coconut cream pie. It was delightful but I think my copycat recipe is pretty dang awesome too if you don't have one close by.

The party didn't end there, though, because Lela and Erin were staying all weekend! Yippee! We went home and stayed up wayyyy too late talking on the bed in our pajamas and I thoroughly freaked Erin out about scorpions. Oh, Arizona. You're kind of the worst for summer weather and insects.

Saturday was spent talking, laughing some more and eating delicious food. We went to Tia Rosa's for lunch and then David took the boys home while we did some antique shopping in downtown Mesa. We didn't end up buying anything but it was fun to pose with our mouth's open and make ridiculous poses with what we found.

these chairs were actually really cute.

Then we went to see Austenland, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and ended the evening at LGO for (the best) pizza and salad. It was so much fun and I'm so very, very glad they came. Easily the hardest part of moving from San Diego was leaving my friends and I am so happy that I've seen them almost every month since we moved. It sounds really ridiculous to say that but there's always been an occasion or a vacation!

I'm so grateful to David for thinking of me and planning all this so that I would feel special and loved. I just can't even explain how happy I am that I am married to that guy. It was a really great birthday and I'm feeling really humbled and grateful for all the people in my life.