The Last Birthday

I'm mostly kidding. I'm not really afraid of getting older (not that we can do anything about it anyway) and I'm not particularly dreading thirty.. but you know how the joke goes about being 29 every year.

Well, now I'm 29 for real, and hopefully only once ;)

I started celebrating with my family over Father's Day weekend and finished celebrating on my actual birthday with a game night. Here's the story in pictures and a few words:

Saturday started off with this giant cinnamon roll that Blake brought me. Holy cow it was huge, and delish.

In case you need some perspective to see how big it is!

The family shot

The couple shot (I'm not sure why I only did three candles)

The blowing shot, these suckers were hard to blow out, and I'm glad I only did three!

Birthday girl shot

For Father's Day breakfast, we took the leftover cinnamon roll and sliced it to make french toast (and there was still some leftover).

You can tell it is father's day breakfast because there is ammo on the table. This is really how it was
when I sat down :). Man this cinnamon roll was even better as french toast, with a little frosting and strawberries. 

This is how the men spent the weekend: in the basement sorting brass and reloading ammo. I guess that's what these guys call fun ;) Happy Father's day Dad!

Down in their little gun paraphernalia man cave.                                     This is some serious brass.

: :

So Thursday was my actual birthday, and we have Bible study on Thursdays. It's funny how many people's birthdays have landed on Bible study night. This night we'd planned game night and potluck. We played Bible Trivia (sometimes we start Bible study with a few Bible Trivia questions, so it was funny (and stinking hard) to play the actual game (circa 1985). Here are some pictures, which mostly have to do with cake because.. well because I made it and it was delicious. And on my birthday (post) it's okay to brag ;). Blake also brought me flowers, and what kind of photography enthusiast would I be without taking a few shots of those ;)

Gorgeous!
(Just think, you'll only see a few more pictures with this background!)

My birthday cake is from my Tyler Florence cookbook and it was fantastic. It was also a nightmare. The cream cheese frosting was getting warm while I was hurrying to assemble it (with an extra layer than the recipe called for... remind me not to do that again) and it was the leaning log of carrot cake goodness. To make matters worse, we were running late because we were bringing wood pellet grilled chicken for dinner and it took longer than expected (some birds are just 'bigger boned'). So we were over 30 minutes late and Blake took a corner at normal speed, but with a tipsy cake it was too fast.. this sucker nearly went everywhere. I saw all four layers sliding off the plate and barely salvaged it with some over correction. It was a saggy frosting mess when we got to the Frater's house (our soon to be neighbors and boy I wished we were already neighbors because I could have slowly walked this sucker over there). After some refrigeration and smoothing out, it turned out okay. All's well that ends well, right?

It was really easy to make (one pan), and super most and delicious, with not-too-sweet frosting. 

So a funny story with a modest cell phone picture to support it. We were running late, right? And I felt really bad about it, but consoled myself thinking well, it's okay- I'm sure they started without us and I'm sure the chicken will get snacked on.. until I remembered that I was also bringing the paper plates because I'd picked them up from Costco for Jen. Oops. So we walk in (I'm flustered) and they were happily waiting for us with this little surprise:

It's a running joke that they keep trying to get us to take their *super* annoying dog, Sophie, home with us, because they know how much I'm not into dogs and this dog in particular. It's not that I hate the dog, but I don't really like any dog and I feel bad for how frustrated my friends are by her incessant barking. They've tried to adopt her out, but sadly, no one they've asked wants her/another dog. Anyway, it was pretty funny :)

Ahh, cake and Bible Trivia, does a last birthday get any better? ;)