Just had my THIRTIETH birthday last week. It was a great day–spent the morning at “work” in the newborn nursery, then came home to open some presents. Rahul got me some beautiful flowers and arranged a yummy sushi picnic in the park (no raw fish, of course), then I got my hair cut and that night we got cozy with pizza and a movie. A very nice start to a hot new decade.

Last year, Rahul and I decided to set aside a “birthday budget” for each other, so that the birthday helper would have a little money to fund their party planning. I think last year we went out to eat, but this year Rahul used it to help fly our Chicago friends Jamie and Julie to visit (I’ve known Jules since the 6th grade)!! So my birthday celebration got to last the whole weekend. Very fun.

We stayed up late, talked, ate good food. On Saturday we went to the “Hawkwatch” day at Hitchcock Nature Center in Iowa to see the birds and go for a hike…and I got to release one of them back into the wild!! It was SO COOL. They picked me because it was my birthday (and because Julie was kinda noisy about it being my birthday). Anyway, did I say it was SO SO cool? It was.

Both Jamie and our friend Sarah said it must be a good sign of some sort. I’ll post a picture as soon as I can.

Hooray for the thirties!