So much has happened in the past few weeks that I have hardly had time to think let alone blog. Zac had a birthday! Happy 25th to you Zac! We went to the Boondocks for the first time and played lazer tag, played on the go carts and bumper boats too. We have been biking, loosing weight and having a great time doing it. I keep worrying that I am manic or something, but I just realized, I have lost 30 pounds, I had better have more energy to do more things!

You see that was my goal, to loose 30 pounds by my birthday, and I did it!

Having said that, I have been carefully planing all the rewards I would receive for doing so for months now! So mom, don’t worry, the diet is still on, I just took a little break for my birthday as a reward for all my hard work.

After much deliberating we decided to make low sugar cupcakes and home made strawberry sorbet for my birthday dessert. So in Wednesday night we did it. Here is a HUGE picture all the 6 cups of fresh strawberries we used.

Then Karl, with much enthusiasm, blended them with some lemon juice and stevia, a natural sweetener.

While he did that I made the cupcakes. I love cupcakes and always prefer them to cake alone.

Once blended we filtered most of the seeds out.

I love my birthday. I always get really excited about it and can’t help but tell everyone I know about it. I planned my whole day thinking that Karl would be at work, then the night before he surprised me with the news that he got it off to be with me!

I had decided that I wanted to got on an early morning bike ride. So around 7am we took off toward Springville a town about 5 miles away.

As we left Zac pointed to the sky and said that he had ordered a balloon to fly in honor of my birthday…I got really excited, but it was a lie.

A quick stop before we left, Provo Bakery.

Karen couldn’t choose just one.

As for me, I had 1/3 a maple donut with almonds on top…ooohhh.

JOY!

Then we were off. The Sun was up but it was a cool morning. We made it to Springville in about a half hour.

There were fields of a train track on either side of us for most of the ride.

This looked like the Imperial Valley to me…

Can you see it? In the distance is the Provo temple:

The Whitmores! BTW’s doesn’t Krysta look great?

Um, I was sweaty.

BUT HAPPY!

While we talked Karen relaxed and ate some cheese.

We rested for a few minutes. Then headed right back. Annoyingly it was at about this point Karl broke a spoke. Luckily we were almost done, and it wasn’t a drive side spoke.

For breakfast we all met Brandon and Leah at Guru’s. I love them.

It was nice to sit in a chair after the ride and awesome to have my first non whole wheat bread in MONTHS! I had an omelet and 1 blue berry pancake. It was amazing.

Also, Brandon’s beard is serious business.



After breakfast we went to Toy Stroy 3. It was so much fun. Really the perfect birthday movie! Karen loved it, and so did we.

After the movie we came home and made last minute party preparations.

I had decided I wanted a themed party. Cowboy themed. We play this cowboy themed game called Bang. Part of the game is the assignment of a character that has a special power every round. So a week before the party I handed out character assignments, that everyone had to dress up as.

This is part of Karl’s preperation. His character’s name was Suzy Lafayette.

While we made preparations for the party, look what arrived from my sisters and niece in portland!

Thanks guys they are sooo beautiful!

We met up at Outback Steak house, all dressed up!

I love Karl.

Alicia and Krysta.

Me and Karl. My character was willy the kid.

Krysta’s was a guy named Pedro Ramirez. Nailed it!

Brandon and Leah. Enough said.



They were just…just amazing. I can’t say how much I love both of them. [and how terribly I will miss them when they move to Oregon next month. : ( ]

My next big break was the awesome blossom. I ate like half of it. It was my first fired food in forever. Just as good as I remembered.



Then there was Dev.

After dinner of a 10oz ribeye and veggied we headed to our place for dessert and presents.

It was at this point Zac joined us.

Leah and Brandon hadn’t lost any of their enthusiasm.

Geoff and Jessie also joined us.

The gifts began. You may see a totally inappropriate card in the background. That is from Krysta and Zac. It has kind of become a tradition, I don’t know why, for them to give me half naked men cards for my birthday every year. They always take me by surprise. In my hands, that is a little more complicated, and it will suffice me to say that I have a phobia of Zombies. So in order to prepare me for the inevitable Zombie apocalypse, for my birthday zac got me everything I need.

The complete Zombie combat manuel.

A crowbar, a zombie fighting tool.

And a face shield to protect as from infection as I fight off the undead.

Other bits of amazingness all around me. In the window a little birthday girl figurine from alicia. A new hat i bought myself. Two boxes of trio bars and a magazine subscription from Bleah. A beautiful new green amber necklace and a visa gift card from my mom. Chacos from Karl. A bracelet from Devanie and more! I have some wonderful and generaous friends and family! I am so Blessed!



Best of all Karl sent me around on a little scavenger hunt for my last gift all around the house where at some point, who knows when, we put notes everywhere. The gift was the newest Ratchet and Clank game for PS3. I have the best most thoughtful husband in the world. We ended up playing the game of things after all and went to bed late, again!

PS: For one final birthday hurrah, we pent Saturday at Lagoon for free with Karl’s company.

We did everything.



and got totally sun burned doing it!

Farewell to another year!