Turning the Big 3-0

"A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun.  Enjoy the trip."  ~Author Unknown

Thank you all so much for your sweet birthday wishes last Friday!  I can officially report that I survived turning the Big 3-0! 

I was actually at an ag law conference in Madison, Wisconsin on the big day.  So my birthday consisted mostly of listening to presentations about ag law issues.  But then one of my law school buddies decided it would be a good idea to have the whole room full of people sing to me.  If you know me, you know I despise singing on birthdays.  Seriously, despise.  Somehow, however, it always seems to happen.  One year, my friend Leon had the whole law school Halloween party sing to me on stage.  Another, the same friend (note to self...no more spending birthdays with him!) had a Mexican food restaurant sing to me whilst making me wear a sombrero.  Anyway, this year was no exception and a room of about 250 ag lawyers sang me happy birthday.  And I almost died.  So yea, there was that.

Me and my friend NYC Ag Lawyer (yep, she has her own firm in NYC!)

Then, my dear, sweet, amazing friends ND Friend and Tiny Dancer came over from Chicago in order to take me out to dinner for my birthday.  For those of you who don't know Midwestern geography, that's a 3 hour drive.  One way.  Yep.  Friendship.  Right there.  And they showed up in style...party hats, horns, confetti being thrown in the streets.....seriously, it was like a parade!

 

 

First things first, however.  The night before my birthday, those two had some exciting news in the form of a big shiny diamond ring on a very important finger!  Yes, that's right, folks, ND Friend and Tiny Dancer are getting married!  I'm not sure I have ever seen two people more excited to be engaged and it was so much fun to get to share that with them.  I, suspecting that this was coming, had put together a little engagement gift basket and brought it with me from Texas for the happy couple.

Engagement basket:  magazine, journal, fun pens, coffee mug, ring pops

The happy couple!

For dinner, we went to this great little bar/restaurant on the square in Madison.  While there, I opened my present from ND Friend and her sister, Super Mom, and found this little baby.....

Once again, best friends in the world, I have.  I got seriously the most beautiful ring from Tiffany's.  Silver band with the Tiffany's blue in the middle.  It's amazing and I absolutely love it!  It came along with a bottle of wine and some of ND Friend's best in the world homemade chocolate chip cookies.  I kinda died and went to heaven.

Oh, one more thing.  No, two.  First, my parents sent me some birthday money to go shopping, so I bought a birthday outfit.  Check it out.  It's a emerald green shirt from Maurices, brown boots from Sears, and black skinny jeans from Stitch Fix.  Trendy, right?  (Connie J, excuse the bathroom picture....I forgot to have someone else take one and had to improvise!)

And the second thing.....The Boy from Texas has been harassing me with talk of a birthday present for months.  Well since I didn't get to see him on my birthday, I didn't get said present yet.  He has, however, given me a few clues about what were looking at.  I know the following:  (1) it is not an engagement ring (don't want anyone getting overly excited here); (2) it is not from Academy; (3) it is shiny; (4) someone else knows about it; (5) he bought it at the nicest store in Amarillo; and (6) it will make up for us having to be apart so much.  My guess?  Private jet.  Apparently that's not the right answer.  I will have to wait a couple more weeks to see what he's got up his sleeve....

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key....went to a bar in Evanston to watch my Pokes beat up on the Texas Tech Red Raiders (at which time I won two bets...one is a friend from Tech making a photo of him in an OSU shirt his profile on Facebook for a week, another lets me breed one of my ewes to my friend's ram....yep, country girls make these kind of bets!).  On Sunday we went to Mass at the most beautiful church in Old Town Chicago....and ND Friend and Tiny Dancer loved it so much that they are getting married there in July!  AHHHH!

I returned home to a homemade banana pie from New Roomie along with my very first Texas A&M shirt (which I have agreed to wear this Friday since the Pokes don't have a big game this week....I still feel a bit like Benedict Arnold!)

So there ya go.  That's what turning 30 looked like for me.  Pretty sure that it's going to be a good year, kids!