Year #33

Sunday April 22 I turned 33.  Supposedly this will be the best year of my life.  I don’t know, they have all been pretty amazing lately!

Elliott and I celebrated with a night out the Friday before.  His sister Rachel watched all four girls (!) for us, part of her Christmas present to us last year (one free night of babysitting).  I wanted to go to The Cheesecake Factory at the new City Creek Center in downtown Salt Lake City, but by the time we got on the road I knew that between traffic, parking, and popularity/newness combo of the restaurant we would be looking at a long long time until we ate.  So we decided to pop into the location closer to our house.  I figured it would still be a wait, but at least we could shave some commute time off. 

When we got there it was really busy (always is); in fact, there was a line to put your name on the waiting list!  I scanned the bar for open seating and snagged two seats (one of the side effects of the “bar scene” in Utah: the fact that there isn’t one).  Score!  I am pretty sure I had my appetizer order in before I would’ve even been able to get my name on the waiting list.

I had my normal – calamari to start and Chicken Madeira for dinner.  Elliott doesn’t really have a “normal” but went back to a favorite, the Factory Nachos.  Of course we finished it off with cheesecake – Red Velvet for me (cake and cheesecake combo, delish!) and Peanut Butter for Elliott. 

Now that we were thoroughly satiated, we headed on up to City Creek.  Can I just say that the first thing I noticed when we pulled in to the parking garage was how clean it was.  The second was that it still smelled new!  Ha ha ! When have you ever smelled (or seen) a clean parking garage?  The place is still so new (less than a month old I think) it hasn’t had time to get dirty yet.

Elliott and wandered through the open air shopping center, pausing in a few stores and watching the fountains (same people who created the Bellagio fountains created the City Creek fountains).  The mall shut down at 9pm, so we headed back home to relieve Rachel and call it a night.


On my actual birthday I got up early with the girls (I was already up, so I didn’t kick Elliott out of bed as I had threatened to do) and relaxed around the house during Emma’s morning nap, even going out to tie up some berries branches.  When Emma got up at 12:30 we went to Golden Corral for their brunch buffet.  Except apparently it’s only a breakfast buffet from 8-11am and we missed it.  I was so disappointed I could have cried (I did a little).  But I felt bad for being a baby, so we stayed for lunch anyway and I mustered up what breakfast foods I could find (biscuits and gravy, sausage, and donuts – healthy eh?).  Everyone else had a fine time and the girls loved having donuts at lunchtime.

After lunch we hit a few stores (Target and Old Navy) since I was trying to find some t-shirts for the summer, but had no luck and the kids were still burning off their sugar high despite a 40-minute trip down to Provo.  After shopping we went to a park near MommaKay’s house that had a large swingset and pond with ducks.   Perfect, except the swings were occupied, the ducks were apparently full and not interested in the bread we brought, and the weather was ridiculously hot!  What the heck!  I was pretty grumpy by this point and just wanted to go sit in the coolness of grandma and grandpa’s house and drink ice water.  So that’s what we did.

That night we had a family BBQ to celebrate my birthday and Sarianna’s birthday (hers was April 18).  We grilled out and the weather (by this time) was gorgeous.  Momma Kay even made me a Red Velvet cake, my favorite.  Sitting outside in the cool breeze made my take a breath and relax and realize how blessed I am.  I think it will be a darn good year!