Thirty, Flirty and Thriving?

I turned 30 on Thursday! To be perfectly honest, I haven't really been looking forward to it. (I don't know how I got this old.) Despite that, my birthday was a great day. I walked in to work and the secretary at my school started singing Happy Birthday to me. Everyone at work was so nice. My students were very sweet and it made me feel loved!

I took half the day off to prepare for an interview that I had that evening at BYU for graduate school admissions. I am hoping to get accepted into the LPP Program to become a school administrator. So, as you can imagine, I was very nervous. I hadn't slept well for a few days and had a pit in my stomach as well. But once I got there, my nerves calmed and I feel like the interview went really well. It was a very positive experience and I should find out whether or not I am accepted by the beginning of February!!

After my interview, I came home to friends and cake and ice cream. My friend Andrea insisted that we had to do something on my actual birthday (even though we would be going out Friday night), so she put something together and it was a lot of fun!!

Friday night, my friends were planning to take me to dinner for my birthday. I didn't know where we were going, the only thing I was told was that I needed to dress up. So when we left my apartment, we walked down to see an Escalade Limo in the parking lot. I was shocked. I had never been in a limo before, how awesome!!

Meghan, Tasha, Erin and Sue
Sara and Lis

So at this point, I'm thinking that we are going to dinner in an awesome limo!! Cool!! But we didn't go straight to dinner. Instead, we pulled up to the State Capitol Building. I had no idea what we would be doing here, but as we walked in I saw Brian Shelby standing, dressed in a suit holding a rose. He gave me the rose, told me happy birthday and kissed my hand. I was then told that I had 45 minutes to walk around the Capitol Building to find 30 men waiting to give me a rose and kiss me on my birthday! Sweet, right?! I was so touched by the thoughtfullness of my friends and also the willingness of all these guys to come and make my birthday special! It was pretty fun!!

Some of the guys

The girls

After dinner, we got back in our amazing limo and were taken to the Gateway to eat at Z Tejas. What a great restaurant! It was super yummy!!

Ben, Andrea, Brian, Scott, Brett

Gary, Brittany x2, and Marcus

Erin, Sue and Lis

Doug, Tasha, and Erin

After dinner, we were headed to one more place. I was so surprised and a little confused when we pulled up to the Hotel Monaco downtown. We were there to stay!

This picture is quite dark, but I wanted to add it because it is in front of the hotel in front of our limo. :)

The Hotel Monaco is a very nice hotel. We even got a complimentary goldfish who we named Francis Frederick Fish. Only four of us stayed, but a few friends came to hang out for a little while. The icing on the cake was Tony Capone. I love this guy! I'm glad he got to come too.

So, this was by far my most exciting birthday party! Thank you to everyone who was involved and took the time to make me feel special on my birthday!! What a wonderful day!!