Me and my doppelganger

My doppelganger came to visit me in between our birthdays which are about a month apart. She left her 4 kids with her husband in California and we went back in time to pretend we were young, immature, and could eat ice cream 4 times a day. I'm not sure the immature part was pretending but here's a few of the things we did. Hiking in City Creek Canyon and Emigration Peak. (the real one, not the one by the zoo. It's a steep little hill for sure. If I was a trail runner I'd consider making this a quick spot to stop by after work...but then, I don't run so forget that idea)

Take a good look because it's not too often you see a picture of both of us smiling normal. (It would have been a better picture if it wasn't for the "chicken") It was good we went hiking that first day since it rained the rest of the time and once we even woke up to this unpleasant surprise. Snow at the end of May, that's absurd.

We ate out a lot including the usual bakeries and some good barbecue with Nate and Carrie, but once in awhile we had a nice meal at home. Few things are better for breakfast than a pile of fresh crepes. Anthorpologie sent me a birthday discount card and tempted me into their store to buy a new apron. Now I won't be so jealous of Alicia's when we cook together although I do think her's is still a bit cuter than mine. Once we ate out fancy, and yes, I went to the Tin Angel again. This time I didn't get the most expensive piece of meat on the menu, but instead ordered an appetizer and a tapas item. Both were amazing. Is anyone interested in going with me a third time? Wild Mushroom Risotto Cake with Romesco Sauce...

Somewhere in there we went to see Candi's new baby Roxanne. She is cute!

The last day we cruised around downtown visiting random places like the Church History Museum, and the City Library where we rode the glass elevator to the top...but there wasn't any chocolate. We had just a little more time to kill so I took her to see Gilgal, the super weird garden that makes no sense. I didn't take the usual pictures of stuff so if you want to see how odd it is, go check it out for yourself. (my favorite is the guy with brick pants) Sounds like a pretty normal visit wouldn't you say? Till you realise that a good majority of the time everyday was spent taking picture of ourselves making funny faces. Seriously, how old are we? Anyways, here are some of my favorites (as in here are some that aren't totally embarrassing)

This is one of my favorite faces to make, but the only people to really appreciate it are Steysi and Duc. Steysi kind of looks like a bulldog when she does it. It also doubles a a zombie face. This is a strange phenomenon that began somewhere in high school. We'd take a picture and afterwards we'd realize we didn't know how we just made the face in the picture. For example, how did I do that to my chin? I'm still not quite sure. Those pictures were all daytime pictures. As it got later everyday they got weirder. Most of them should not be seen in public because they look something like this...

Ok all done. Time to be normal again.

The Day I Turned 31

I turned 31. Part of me wishes I was still little and yellow and fuzzy like this little goose at the zoo, but then I like my life, so I think I'm ok with being 31 for now. 31 isn't terribly exciting as far as ages go, but the day was good at least. I always like to do, or see, or eat something that is classified as a "favorite" on my birthday and this year wasn't too shabby. After waking up in Idaho and saying goodbye to my sister's kids as they went to school and eating a breakfast of huckleberry cream of wheat I had a nice long drive home to Utah by myself. I like road trips so maybe this counts as a favorite. Though road trips alone aren't my favorite. I went to Alicia's and her family took me to the zoo where they treated me to Dippin Dots!! If you know me, you know this is a favorite. One of the funnest things to do with dippin dots is to see other people have them for the first time. I'd had them with Quinn before (that was fun too. He didn't believe me that it was food and wouldn't try it till I told him is was ice cream cereal) but it was Xavier's first time. They were so nice and let me eat out of their bowls. Then we saw the giraffes!!! They rank high up there on the favorite list.We also saw some bats...not favorites, but on the way out of the building I noticed there was a big bat in this house plant sitting just outside the main doors... I repeat, outside the doors. We told the zoo people and they kinda freaked out a little. I got this close up before they shooed us away and told us not to touch it.Then we saw the tiger cubs. They're not very small anymore but they were still being really playful in the water. One of them was looking at all the kids lined up against the glass. I swear he had this one little girl hypnotized forever. He got even closer to her face than in this picture. Then he tried to make friends with Quinn. I love how in the picture it looks like their hands are touching. I don't know if he wanted to eat him or play with him. Before we left we rode the train. The animals were standing way closer to the train than they usually do. You can't see it but in this picture Xavier was grabbing my arm and leaning toward me away from the Buffalo.Alicia also made me a cake! A chocolate rum cake. mmmm definitely one of my favorite flavors ever. She even left out the raisins the recipe called for because they are not favorites!After I left Alicia's I went to dinner with Rob. One of my favorite friends. He took me to The Tin Angel Cafe. I'd been wanting to try this place forever and I finally got to go. It was really good too! I knew they used local ingredients and organic free trade kind of stuff but I didn't know they were going to have buffalo tenderloin on the menu!!! This is one of my most favorite things to eat that isn't a dessert and doesn't involve cheese. It is so amazing. If you've never had it and you like meat, I highly recommend it. I only know 2 other restaurants in Utah that serve it. Sure it was the most expensive thing on the menu but I ordered it anyway and I got it rare. It was so delicious!!!!! That was one of my favorites that I wasn't expecting to have. It was a little odd to eat buffalo after just seeing a buffalo a few hours before. (oh and there was some cheese on the side...cheese...favorite!)Rob ordered a steak but it was a little smaller than he expected... Actually he didn't. That was a tapas "two bite" item we got on the side. After dinner I went home and called a couple of my favorite friends and also talked to my parents. I opened the present they sent me...a little lap top!!!! I'm so excited! Then I ate some left over rum cake before going to bed. I wasn't expecting a whole lot but it turned out to be a pretty good birthday.

My E1 Birthday in Idaho

The weekend before my birthday I went up to Idaho to hang out with my sister and her family. It's always fun to see the kids and the animals and they always seem to come up with something new to do while I'm there. There's also the usual stuff like huckleberry breakfasts and waffles and crepes for dinner and spending an entire day eating snow cones, cookies, and scones...but I'll leave all that food stuff out this time.

First: the Animals!

These pictures aren't even half of it. Chickens, pheasants, chuckers, ducks, a goose that doesn't really like me much and a turkey who's too fat to care if he likes you or not. Jailynn tried to send me home with a new pet as a birthday present but I managed to leave without a chicken, a rabbit, or GingerBelle the cat. (Although it'd have been tempting to take Ginger back home with me again...I resisted.)Chicken feet are surprisingly big and creepy.

This is one of the rabbits, Clover who we took inside for a few days. I feel asleep on the couch holding it and when I woke up it was still there. It reminded of me of when I'd fall asleep holding my rabbit when I was a kid. Then later I noticed there were these pictures of me with it on my camera. These are two of Kjirsten's goats.

These are maybe half of the cats. Katrina doused them all in catnip and they all just rolled around on the deck together for awhile. It was pretty funny. There's also chinchillas, a dog, a pet mouse and some other random things...

Next: the Fun Stuff!

We went out to the Sand dunes and had a picnic by the water before playing on the dunes.

I'd heard a lot about the sand dunes but never been to them. It was weird being there without a beach nearby. They just went on forever. And Jailynn had us walk around forever too looking for a dune steep enough to jump off. She never found one so we had to settle for only kind of steep dunes. It was still fun.

I don't remember posing for this picture, I don't know what we were doing with our arms out...

I got some cool pictures of Harrison. I especially like this series of him falling.

The clouds were perfect and made all the pictures look awesome.

Josh stayed and played in the shade of a lone Juniper tree and even got to jump in the sand a few times before we left.Even in the sand dunes, they managed to find some animals...Beetle tracks!

Last: A birthday party!

The best part of this picture is Josh going down the slide in the background!

The day before my birthday we had a picnic in the backyard then played some Bocce ball. Harrison and I made it funner by throwing the white ball into random places like garden, a ditch, or into the trees. Then we roasted gigantic marshmallows and ate my E1 cake. Before she started putting the Whoppers on Katrina asked me to remind her which way a 3 goes so I showed her. I didn't notice till after I was done that I showed her the wrong way. Jailynn even fixed the candles to match. I wonder if my birthday wish will come true backwards.