Oh no...

Yes, I turned the Big 3-0 on Thursday. Big whoop. Not much has changed except that I am older, fatter, and more tired than I was on Wednesday. And now my parents feel really old since they have a child who has been alive for three decades.

Other than that, things are pretty much good on this side. I had a fabulous birthday, starting with the INCREDIBLE Jason Mraz concert that Tim took me to on the 14th. I knew we were going because I had to arrange for (approve of, administer background checks and drug-screenings for) the babysitter since it was on a Monday night and Grammy couldn't be here. What I didn't know is where our seats were or the fact that we had fancy tickets that got us into the VIP lounge before the show.

The concert was at the Nokia Theatre in Grand Prairie, which is an awesome venue, and after we chatted with friends in the lobby for a while and checked out the VIP lounge for about 3.5 seconds, we headed to our seats. And while I assumed that our seats would be somewhere in the upper bowl, or maybe we'd be lucky enough to sit somewhere in upper portion of the lower bowl, we headed straight towards the stage, where a ticket agent led us into the pit...to our seats...in the 6th row. O.M.G. We were pretty much dead center, sixth row, and if you ask me, they were the best seats in the house (if you check out the seating chart here, we were in section 104, row F, on the aisle).

Anyway, it freakin' rocked, and Jason was amazing live, and we had a great time. I determined that the concert tied* for first place in my "Best Concerts of All Time" list - and I've been to a lot of concerts.

On my actual birthday, I got lots of nice Facebook messages and phone calls and gifts and songs from friends and family. And, first thing in the morning, Alex sang me a rousing rendition of the Happy Birthday Song, which he is sort of obsessed with since we've been to a couple birthday parties recently.

Tim took us to dinner at a great cafe called Bolsa, where he had gone on some work-related lunch outing and had been dying to take me. And I'm so glad he did because the food was soooo good (it's one of those places that serves only market-fresh and seasonal items, so there is no freezer on the premises). I really want to get into details about the bruschetta tasting plate and the beautiful, golden sear on my scallops and the sinfully delicious leek butter they were drenched in, but all that foodie type of talk comes across so pretentious-sounding that I will just relive the experience in my head and spare you all the yummy details...

Anyhoo, it's not necessarily the kind of place that most people might take a two-year old, but we tend to blatantly disregard the unspoken rules regarding "child-friendly" restaurants if it is a Thursday night and we arrive before sundown. Plus, we always bring our own high chair and sit out on the patio, if possible. Luckily Thursday was a perfect night to sit outside, and we had a great dinner.











Alex had an order of pepperoni flatbread - basically pizza on a superthin crust with spicy pepperoni and fresh mozzerella and basil - and meeeeowwwww, I think it might be the best pizza I've ever had. Alex ate three pieces, plus he had a few bites of my scallops - loved them! - and a few bites of his daddy's quail - loved it! - and that was all he had because we were unwilling to share anymore (we bought the kid an $11 pizza - for crying out loud, child, eat your pizza and leave my food alone).









Of course, we had dessert, too, because what is a birthday dinner without dessert, and we settled on a peach and blueberry crisp.

So it was a fun, fun birthday night with my boys. I am very thankful that we can go do these kinds of things together to celebrate special occasions. I have a such good little boy and a great husband. Love you guys! Thanks for the great birthday!



*In case you were wondering, the other first place winner was the Sondre Lerche concert we went to in Grantham, PA, when we were living in Philly while I was in grad school. The venue was a tiny room at a tiny christian college in Nowhere, Pennsylvania, and it was like being at a concert in someone's living room. We had front row seats -which really wasn't that big of a deal considering the "nosebleed section" was about twenty feet from the stage - and got to chat with Sondre afterwards.