Birthday Week Extravaganza!!

My husband is awesome. He seriously is amazing. I haven't been super excited about this years birthday. Can you blame me? 30 just always seemed to be an age I'd never reach. I feel old now. Anyhow, I was originally planning on going to Time Out for Women with a few friends down in Utah this October. I've already been this year and had seen almost all the speakers. And really I just wanted some girl time. So Daniel and I decided for my 30th birthday I would take a trip to Utah by myself with one of my besties- Kate. Luckily, Kate's parents have this beautiful vacation home in Hurricane, so we headed down there for the weekend. ALONE. It was SO FUN!!!!!!! We had the best time.

This is the house Kate's generous parents let us stay in. It was like staying in a resort. I had my own room, own bathroom and best of all, completely silent, uninterrupted sleep. It was heavenly.

The first day was spent shopping at the outlet mall in St. George, eating, piercing noses and more eating.

The next day, we headed to Vegas. Here's the strip. I have to say, nothing quite prepares you for Vegas. It was shocking, and not in a good way. I was completely stunned by the vulgarity that is Las Vegas.

But, we made the most of it and headed to the m&m universe store and coca cola store.

Slots at the Bellagio hotel. Don't worry, we only spent $1.00. Well, Kate did anyways. I came away from the casino/hotels with a renewed appreciation for the clean air act in Washington that prohibits smoking in and within 25 feet of public buildings. It was bad. I think its so rude to smoke around other people really.

Lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. It wasn't that good and was seriously over priced, but the diet coke was welcome. It was 114 degrees! We were dieing.

Finding our way back to the Bellagio was a little tricky. Finding someone we didn't think would run off with my camera to take this picture was even trickier. We finally found a nice older couple to take it. We knew we could catch up to them if they ran off.

The fountains at the Bellagio were amazing. They really do play classical music while they are going. It was so cool. I just kept thinking about George Clooney and Brad Pitt while they were going off;-).

Inside the Bellagio hotel was amazing! I was surprised to see how cool it was inside.

I a little bit love this picture of Kate in front of the fake stuffed bird. It cracks me up every time I look at it!

Here's the Eiffel tower on our way home. We were going to stay for a show, but we were exhausted and the thought of coming out of a show at 10:30 pm, scared me. I felt like someone was going to mug me the whole time we were there, can you imagine how paranoid I would have been at night!?

The house in Hurricane is only 30 minutes from Zion National Park. It was beautiful scenery. I've never seen rock that red before. It's was truly amazing. The next few days consisted of sleeping, eating, having lunch with some other Pullman friends and sadly, saying goodbye. I'm so blessed to have such wonderful friends. Kate and I had so much fun. We laughed a lot and talked even more. I feel so blessed to have people in my life who lift me up and make me smile! Thank you Kate! (and Mike for letting me borrow her for 4 days) I really did miss my kiddos. We talked every night, but I missed their smiling faces. I didn't miss waking up so early every morning, but I was still anxious to get home to them and Daniel. Little did I know, Daniel had planned a birthday bbq with so many of our friends!

It was really fun and made me feel really good to know how many friends I really have.

The cake Daniel got me was so cute! I've never had such a fancy cake. It was so fun. I really loved it. It was so thoughtful of him.

So as it turns out, 30 isn't so bad after all. I've done a lot in 30 years and plan to do more in the next 30. Thank you to everyone who made my day so special! Especially to my amazing husband who was such a trooper with the kids without me!