My 30th birthday!!!!!

Isn't it weird how in your early twenties you think that turning 30 was the equivalent of aging beyond 80? What a load of crap! The thirties are where it's at, man. I feel like you're young enough to have a wonderful time in life but old enough to not be such an idiot with your decisions - it's truly the best of both worlds!

This being such a big birthday, I've got to document it up in here. So what the heck did I do for the big 3-0! True to form, I didn't feel like planning a dang thing until about 2 weeks beforehand. Why am I like that? Chad plans things like years in advance, I'm more like "hey our wedding is in 3 weeks, maybe I should buy a dress..." hahaha!

Anyhoo, after wracking my brain about what to do, I decided to go out for a girls morning out at Fashion Island. Due to my new "work out person" status at the time (a description I only had for about 2 weeks at that point bahaha!), I thought it would be fun to be really trendy chicks and try out a Soul Cycle class with a few of my girlfriends! My thought was, "hey, the rest of America goes to Soul Cycle and gets through the classes feeling like super heroes, surely we can handle a little ol' 45 minute spin extravaganza and then be okay to go to brunch after."

THAT. CLASS. WAS. SO. DANG. HARD. I. ALMOST. DIED! How, HOW, do people look so casual on social media after taking that death class?!?!? After 45 minutes of DYING upon my bike, flabbergasted by the droves of people around me who were keeping up with my unicorn of an instructor who I couldn't take my eyes off of (was she real?), I stumbled off, barely able to see straight hahahahaha! PEOPLE, THOSE CLASSES ARE SO HARD!!!!!! The hilarious thing was that because my birthday is in January, they were having a special going on where you could buy one class and then get two as long as you use the second one within 30 days - none of us redeemed the second class hahahaha - I REPEAT, WE DIED.

Anyhoo! After class, we all tried to decide if we were going to take advantage of the studio's showers before heading off to brunch at Fig and Olive. I decided that I wouldn't shower - this is 30. Bahaha! I just changed into some cute boots and a top and we headed out. The majority of the group drove over to the restaurant while my friend Kristy and I walked over - we were in this hilarious daze!

Anyway, we all sat down at brunch (I repeat, with shaky vision), red-faced and ready to chow down! My sister joined us at that point (she was very pregnant so no Soul Cycle for her). She looked fresh as a daisy, we were all still sweating baha!

It was my first time going to that lovely restaurant, it took me by surprise how nice it was!!! GORGEOUS. There were two bridal showers happening while we were there - each chick looked like they had planned their get-ups for months beforehand. So yes it was very wonderful!!!!! I want to go back when I'm not in the throes of almost puking hahaha!

Honestly it was a great birthday celebration and exactly what I wanted: something that was out of the house, adult, and during the day (as opposed to late at night. I was still needing extreme amounts of sleep after the 15 months of waking up with Gracie). Chad was a little weirded out that my plans for such a big birthday didn't include him (sorry my love!), but it was mainly because I really never go out with just the girls, so I figured I would start off my new decade of life doing just that. I think at one point I even said to Chad, "wait so the entire universe gets to have all of these 'girl days' except for me?" He was like, "chill out, I'm just asking if you want me to go, that's all," hahaha! Clearly I was still very sleep deprived and in need of some fresh, beachy air!

On my actual birthday night, which was a Tuesday, we loaded the kids up in the car, headed to Huntington Beach so Chad's mom could watch them, and then the two of us went to Pac City for a little dinner. Although it was all good, the effort was so strenuous that we could have just stayed home and I would have been just fine. The service at the restaurant we went to was HORRIBLE, so that made me question why we even made it happen at all. Oh well though!!! Still cool!

Anyhoo, 30 it is! What a great time in life!

When you need an outlet other than spending thousands on your home

Well shoot, it costs a whole lotta dough to fulfill my "creative needs" at the moment, especially because those "needs" happen to be redoing every inch of our home! Bahaha - what an expensive "hobby" that is. Then I remembered that this here little space used to fill up any creative empty spots in my soul, so chap, here we are! The ol' blog is free and useful. FREE being the operative word in that there sentence! :D

Anyhoo!!!!!! What's been going on up in here?

- WE GOT SOME FURNITURE! Yes! It's happened. We can now SIT DOWN in ALL OF OUR ROOMS - woah. I know, try not to lose your mind over this fact. Oh wait, not every room. There's nothing in the dining room still :)

- Carter completed his first year of competitive hockey! He made the A team, something he was stoked about. I've got to say, he's the bomb. Next season he'll age out of the level he's at right now and will begin practicing as a squirt. From experienced parents I keep gathering that this is a very big deal - is it weird that I'm nervous about the whole thing????? I know he'll find his footing and be just fine but BAH!!!!

- Kota got asked to jump up to her gymnastic's pre-team - she loves it! I can't believe we drop off our little kindergartener at a sport for a total of 4 hours per week - it's mind blowing when I think about it like that. She's a fierce little beast though, so I know she can handle it!

- Gracie baby is just a happy little thing. Chad and I tried our hand at some at-home-bang-cutting to get her hair out of her eyes and let me TELL YOU, we won't be doing that again hahaha. She's giving off Frier Tuck vibes. It's actually very cute, but only because she's a 1 year old and anything on her is cute. Hahaha!

- I STARTED WORKING OUT ON A REGULAR BASIS!!!!! I was kind of in this weird funk for a couple weeks during the end of December/early January. I just kept thinking about how every single day was Groundhog Day-ish - everything was always the same, nothing crazy to look forward to, pity party this, pity party that. And then! Chad told me that his mom emailed him an idea for my 30th birthday. She had found this pilates retreat for me to go to in order to get out of the house, breathe in some fresh air and rejuvenate myself - she was right about me needing to get the heck out of the house and have a goal! I took her email as a sign from God as a way to kick my funky ways, so the very next day I called the local Orangetheory, signed up for a class, and then signed up for the unlimited package two days later!!!!! It was so cool! I JUST DID IT. I had this feeling that it was NEEDED, to hell with logistics! And let me tell you, it's BEEN AWESOME!

- Chad has just been being his usual bomb diggity self! I'm trying to think of what he's been up to... hmmm.... HE'S TURNING 30 IN LESS THAN TWO MONTHS!!!!! I'm so excited for his rad birthday party plans: a Downtown Disney pub crawl where we're all going as EIGHTIES THEMED Disney characters!!! I'M SO EXCITED! C3PO coming in hotttttttttt ova here!

Well sheesh, this was refreshing!!!! And like I said earlier, a FREE way to be creative for a bit bahahaha. Okay! Gots to go get Gracie up from her nap so we can go pick up Kota and her little buddy! It's Open House tonight!!! How is kindergarten and first grade almost over?!