Happy Birthday to me! I'm now 33!

"3 is a magic number, yes it is, it's a magic number." And this year I have double 3's in my birthday year, so it's going to be a magical year, right? It has been such a wonderful day. So many people have called, texted, or left messages on my facebook page to wish me a happy birthday. I truly feel like the queen of the day. It started out with some sleeping in (of course) and then we had blueberry pancakes with peanut butter on them. I love the blueberries so I was looking for the pancakes that had the most in them. Ryan got two that had a lot, so he brought them to me instead. What a great, wonderful man I married. I got an awesome Happy Birthday song from the Watts and Quincy tried to send me kisses through the phone by sucking on it. :)

I did start the day off by going to my friend Susan's brothers funeral. Her brother, Brian Scott Kelley, was in a major motorcycle accident which at first had them knowing he would be paralyzed, but they didn't know how much brain damage there would be. As time went on, they found out that there was no blood going to the brain and he was brain dead as of Monday, July 16. It was a very nice funeral and a lot of us from school went to support her.
After that, we relaxed a bit before we got to go to Chili's with my sisters, Jonelle and Maren, and my brother Eric. We met them at 4:30 for dinner. They already had the bottomless chips and salsa with queso ready for us when we got there. I got something I had never had before, Grilled Shrimp Tacos which were really good. She warned me that they were spicy, but I didn't think they were at all. They were very tasty. Maren got a sandwich which was not her favorite, Jonelle got the Monterey Chicken (one of my favorites- I was debating on whether or not to get that too), Ryan got the full baby back ribs, and Eric got this massive burger with onion rings and bacon on it. He couldn't remember the name of it, but it was huge.
My parents gave me as a gift "The Serpent's Shadow", another in the Kane Chronicle Series. Maren gave me some mini-eggs she had left over from Easter which I was so excited for because we didn't get any this year. Eric made sure to tell the waitress it was my birthday and we got this amazing caramel brownie with ice cream. Soooo good!

At Chili's. Gift from my parents.

I tried to flip it, but it wouldn't do it. This is the 3rd book in the Kane Chronicles Series.

Then we went to go see "The Amazing Spider-Man". I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but it definitely surpassed the Tobey Maguire ones. I really did like it, even though it took me awhile to get into it. My favorite part (the one part where Eric laughed out loud) was when Stan Lee did his cameo. (Stan Lee is the creator of Spider-Man and all the Marvel Super Heroes). Just listening to his music on headphones while Spidey and the villian are fighting in the background. Awesome.
Then we went over to Jonelle's for some cake and ice cream. Jonelle had made the funfetti cake which I love and Eric had picked up from the BYU creamery a fudge brownie nut ice cream, yum.

The "awesome" funfetti cake Jonelle made.

Eric is very concentrated on lighting the candles.

Jonelle & Eric are now doing it.

As you can see Maren's candle has burned the most.

Look at ALL of those candles lit up.

The birthday song

I blew all the candles out in one breath!

Then we watched some Quincy videos before we left. It was a lot of fun and I will post the pictures tomorrow, but I at least wanted to get this up tonight. Thank you to all for making my birthday so wonderful!

Jonelle getting the Roku ready. Ryan excited to see Quincy. He hasn't seen her since she was born.

Maren & Eric chilling on the other couch.

We ended up having to video tape this on my ipad so we could all be in it. This was my first attempt to take pictures from a video. I tried to add special elements to it, but for some reason it didn't save it.

My goofy husband.

Now my goofy brother.

Love my family!

Eric was definitely hamming it up.

We have fun together.

I think Eric is really the only one who changed among all of these pictures.

Organization battles Entropy

I recently went to a Stake Relief Society Workshop and learned that organization is not a talent, but is a skill that can be learned. Well, I have been trying to work on that skill during my summer vacation and I have found the nasty law of physics, entropy, lurking around every corner. Entropy's definition states - a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration/lack of pattern or organization; disorder. There is a Law of DISORDER! Therefore, for every thing that you put in order, entropy is there trying to take something else apart. (I hope it's not like the 3rd Law of Motion: For every action there is an EQUAL and OPPOSITE reaction. Uggghhh!) That has been my struggle for the past few weeks. For example, I just re-organized my kitchen exactly the way I wanted it. I had just made everything clean and orderly. The space on top of my fridge is now a space saving item, but I didn't realize I had left so little room for each item. As I was readjusting a basket, a bottle of Noni Juice fell on the carpet, hitting precisely at the bottle's neck causing the bottom to shoot off. Immediately, the sticky, nasty, tart smelling liquid, permeated into the brown carpet, splattered all over my kitchen chairs, table and wall. Entropy was out to destroy me! I had spent a good day and a half re-organizing my kitchen and it lashed back. It took me a good 3 hours to clean everything up, including the carpet (2x - thank goodness for OxiClean!)

I don't think you can see it very well, but this is the picture I took to 
show Ryan while he was still at work. It took me 3 hours total 
(not all at once) to clean!

Here is the cleaned result! No stains, just shadows from the table.

Even Ryan has felt the effects. He has been trying to get so much done with work, his new calling as 2nd counselor in a Singles Ward, and studying for the Enrolled Agent Exam. He has been doing all of this stuff to prepare and get organized and entropy comes along and he gets sick for 2 weeks straight! I felt so bad for him. He kept on trying to work and push through it, but every day he still had a fever of 102 degrees. It was horrible and there was no rest for him. In the end he had to succumb to entropy's power and call in sick. He took off Thursday and Friday and just slept. It was good for him to just sleep it all away (and go to an actual Internal Medicine doctor rather than InstaCare - not that they aren't good, just another opinion was needed). Thank goodness we got some good antibiotics and he is on the mend.

Poor Ryan. He just needed lots and lots of sleep.

I know that if you don't think about something, it takes it's power away, so can I do that with entropy? Can I conquer it and just not think about it? There must be a way to go against this Law. Maybe I'm thinking too much about this since I just finished "Matched". I need to not think too much about what I read. I just picked up "The Lost Hero" so I might be a little into Roman mythology for awhile. :-) Maybe Roman mythology and fighting bad guys is exactly what I need to fight entropy right now. I will just focus on the awesome power I feel of being organized and imagine entropy's power fading away. And if it doesn't, I guess it's another way for me to learn patience. :-)