I Forgot to Mention

...That the most important activity we did yesterday was eat cake (angel food, to be precise, since I semi-recently discovered that it's one of the few cakes John likes). Don't you love these beautiful perfectly exposed and carefully thought-out pictures? I should be a food blogger... or not.

A Birthday Weekend + 50mm Lens

The really exciting part of this weekend was John's birthday, but I of course left my memory card plugged into my computer when I grabbed my camera, so I didn't get any pictures except these ones on my phone:

 (Mini-trip up to Park City and then through Heber and down into Provo Canyon).

(The sign John's sister-in-law Kylee made for his sitting room/shoe room/man cave).

Yesterday I finally got my sister to come out and help me test out my new lens. We did a little photo shoot and I'm pretty happy with the 50mm.

This next one is for my mom so she'll always remember that Rachael can point her eyes in different directions.

And Rachael got some of me too.

Happy Birthday to Me

I've never thought of 23 as anything special because it's just a random birthday (not 20 and not 30 -- apparently big things come in tens), but this year was really good. My family has a tradition of opening some presents in the morning after breakfast and some before we eat cake at night, so yesterday morning I opened my presents from my parents. I got a pair of boots and a new 50mm lens for my camera (which I'd been dying to have, thanks Mom and Dad!) 

Then I went to work. When I came home, I went up to my room and discovered this:

I was A) embarrassed because my room was so messy, B) surprised because I knew John worked all day and didn't think he'd find time to do that (apparently he rushed to get everything done on his lunch break), and C) super happy because this kind of cute stuff is my favorite. Every balloon had a picture of  us together tied to it. He's gotten pretty good at these cutesy-creative things and it makes my day every time.

(First picture with my new lens!)

He also left roses and my favorite chocolate-covered macadamia nuts on my nightstand.

 (Look at that pretty bokeh! aka blurriness. I love love love this lens).

For dinner we all went to the Cheesecake Factory. I'd never been there before and it turned out being really good. The only problem was that the menu is so big I was overwhelmed and it took way longer than usual for me to pick what I wanted to order. After dinner, I got a slice of Godiva dark chocolate cheesecake and it was heaven on a plate. 

Then we spent the rest of the night eating ice cream cake (in case the cheesecake wasn't enough sugar for some of us) and opening presents (clothes, shoes, a diamond necklace, nail polish, and my recent movie-obsession Safe Haven) and hanging out at home. It was a perfect night. Thank you everyone for making it so great. :) 

Birthday Recap

Okay, this post also has "recap" in the name . . . sorry about that. I just had to put up a few pictures from my mom's birthday. My grandma was here visiting with us, so that was nice. For dinner we went to Ruby River Steakhouse (yum) and then ate a cake I made. I followed the recipe, but I also put a chocolate ganache (1/2 cup cream and 1/2 cup chocolate) in the middle, then refrigerated it for a few hours and frosted it. Wish I'd gotten a few pictures of what the actual slices looked like. They were really thick and chocolatey.

Pretty good if I do say so myself . . .   :)

Things are Getting Fishy Around Here

Today was Rachael's fourteenth birthday. When I was younger, my mom always made us amazing birthday cakes. A few years ago, we started buying ice cream cakes from Cold Stone (they're way easier and they taste great). But this year, Rachael decided she wanted a homemade cake. My mom decided to do a "fish tank" themed cake since Rachael loves shells and fish). We used this pin as inspiration. We used graham crackers for the little towers and crushed grahams for the sand (the original pin uses nuts, but we don't really like them). Our seaweed looks way more pathetic, but that's my fault (fruit roll-ups and laffy taffy are really hard to cut into seaweed shapes). And don't worry, we sanitized all the shells before we put them on the cake.

Happy birthday Rachael!

I hope this year you decide you like pre-made ice cream cakes like the rest of the family. ;)