Birthday - zilla

I go into birthdays with really high expectations that every single second needs to be wonderful, and as you  might imagine, this has led to disappointment in the past. I have to say though, I think this birthday met that requirement, even starting with the celebration the night before.

I wanted to have a very low key birthday celebration - I had a few good friends over Saturday night. We ordered Chinese (aka, no cooking or food prep on our part), drank delicious wine, played games, and of course, no night is complete without some on demand karaoke.

 

 

We gently encouraged our friend Lisa (below, on the right) to run the Baltimore Ten Miler with us after having run only one 5K in the past. I felt terrible when we were able to pull into the parking lot and she asked "so...does this race have hills?". Oops. Then she was nice enough to come celebrate my birthday that evening, only I think she was a little shocked by what she found.

 

 

And we finally got to bust in to this baby. I overheard two different people say that was the real reason they came. Lesson learned - if you want friends to celebrate your birthday, learn to make delicious cake.

 

Eric insisted on wearing his Baltimore Ten Miler vest all day even though it was like 90 degrees out - I probably would have done the same in his position though.

When I woke up on my first morning as a 28 - year old, clearly the day needed to start off with an easy five mile run. I got to use my birthday gift from Carolyn!

 

(It's the cute tank top).

There is a cute list of reasons on the back that I didn't take a picture of.

Then my feet got a birthday treat when I used my gift from Lily.

 

I had some fantastic visitors from North Carolina join me for a fabulous lunch (breakfast for me, since I slept super late) of Wegmans subs.

 

The newlyweds, Mr. & Mrs. Lester.

 

Emma, Kim, me, and Nicole

 I came home and opened my gifts. There is a series of really creepy pictures coming because apparently I can't open gifts and look normal at the same time.

The first few were from my sister:

 More of my favorite coffee!!! I am HOOKED UP for the summer!!!

 Amanda tried to help me prevent suffering when the chocolate shortage hits. This picture is pretty beavery.

 My mom sent me this awesome serving bowl because she knows I love bringing veggie trays to parties.

 We then headed to Dupont Circle to Lauriol Plaza, the best Mexican restaurant in DC, to eat with the Obamas.

Amazing how much my arms look like Michelle's.

Our friends Katylin and Ben treated us to dinner! Thanks so much guys!!

They even directed us to free parking and a free shuttle so we saved $20 by not parking at the Kennedy Center.

Free shuttles make us so happy.

 

The Kennedy Center had cool flags.

Why were we at the Kennedy Center in DC? You may remember a long time ago Eric got my birthday gift:

 

Tickets to WICKED!!!

Our favorite play of all time. It was our third time going. Some people are able to be all sophisticated and compare different casts and different sets and all that. To me it's like trying to compare a brownie sundae from Friendlies to one from DQ. There's only one way a brownie sundae can be - phenomenally wonderful. Same with Wicked.

Thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes and gifts everyone - this was a pretty fabulous birthday!