Birthday #30 for CarrieAnn!! (Part II in the birthday week series)

Birthday week was great. My family made my birthday so much fun.

On the actual day, my parents sponsored a birthday dinner for me at the Garden on top of the Joseph Smith building, since they couldn't be here. I loved the food an the atmosphere.

While waiting for the food, my cute date consented to a sassy photo shoot. What great company!

That weekend, Matt threw a birthday party for me. It was fantastic. He had our house all decked out in birthday decorations, and he made great snacks. I saw friends I hadn't seen in ages. (Thanks Matt!!!!)

Here is me in my birthday gear--crown, glowstick necklace, 30th birthday blue ribbon--pretending to be the birthday queen (the balloons were my loyal subjects).

Alan and Maren, a necessary addition to any great party

Mike, Kellie, Lukifer, and Matt. Doesn't get better than this.

Celina bonding with Rufus

A slight snack mishap. These tricky mini corndogs came back to haunt us about a month later when a forgotten batch of them were found in the oven, burnt to charcoal!

Birthday Week Part I: The Twins

In mid-September we had Birthday Week. CA's birthday is only 2 days after mine (and my twin brother Mike's). For Mike's and my birthday, CA made a yummy dinner for us while we played MarioKart on the Wii. It was a baked deli sandwich--meats and cheeses baked inside a shell of bread dough--with baked asparagus and taco-flavored fries on the side. Yum!! It was followed up with some delicious orange-flavored birthday cupcakes.

After dinner I opened my presents from CA. I got Taboo, which is my favorite game but which I have never actually owned; a jacket; and a new copy of the first CD I ever owned as a young teenager, but had long since lost: Staring at the Sea: The Singles by The Cure. (She had been holding on to that little nugget of information since January or February.) Earlier, Mike gave me the new Coldplay record and Radiohead's classic Kid A, both on vinyl. Mike got a subscription to Gospelink.com.

Then CA blindfolded the birthday boys and led us through the streets of SLC to a surprise location. It turned out to be the Broadway Theater, where we watched a documentary called Man On Wire. It was something that I had mentioned wanting to see weeks and weeks before after reading a review, which CA was cool enough to have remembered even after I forgot. As anyone can see, CA is a super-thoughtful and sweet birthday planner and gift giver.

Courtrooms, Condos, Confections and Coinkadinks

In got subpoenaed to testify in August for a court case I worked on back when I was a full-time translator. The bad new was that I would have to be away from home for a few days. The good news was I was put up in a vacation resort condo on beautiful white-sand island in Florida, all expenses paid, and CA got to come with me for only a hundred bucks!

The gulfside beach of Okaloosa Island behind our condo

On Sunday morning we picked a local ward and went there for sacrament meeting. Of all the Mormons in all the world, who do you think would be speaking in that random ward on that very morning? It was Kelly, one of CA's best friends from High School. We were beyond shocked. I mean, seriously, what are the chances? Here's a picture of the girls to prove it:

Among our various activities, we discovered one of the South's hidden secrets: The Waffle House. In all our excitement, we overdid it a little bit:

Before Waffles

After Waffles

In between my judicial duties and sampling southern cuisine, we had a little time for snorkeling and walking around on the beaches. Unfortunately, we didn't happen to have our camera when we saw the sandpipers, dolphins, herons, crabs, fish, conchs, or jellyfishes; but here's some toes on the beach: