30th Birthday

My birthday has come and gone. I am officially 30 years old. I never thought it would happen but here I am, past my twenties. So much for the punk rock mantra, "Live Fast, Die Young." That window has certainly been closed at this stage. Now it is on to new adventures. The twenties brought more stories than I can even recall, from stints of voluntary homelessness to buying my first home and everything in between.

My birthday turned out to be a great day. Two of the major players in my life transformed a day that was filled with anxiety to a day of humor and relaxation. A big thank you to them for all their effort and patients with me over the last several weeks. I am sure it was not an easy task.

Early in the morning, Ashley arrived and we headed into the mountains for a cold weather hike. Two hours later, we were confronted with closed gates and signs warning of citations for trespassing. Apparently, the roads that lead to the trail heads were closed due to the off-season or maybe even the snow. Eventually we found a small trail that we walked. It was more of a walking path than an actual hike though. It took about 20 minutes to go round trip. Back to the car and headed home. It was a really nice drive so we remained in good spirits. Ashley also saw her first rural mail person. She did not realize that they drove their own vehicle and she laughed for a good ten minutes, one of the highlights of the drive.
On the way back to Atlanta, we spotted a huge chair in the middle of a field. Needless to say, we stopped and took funny photos.


Back home, napping until Jamie got out of work. She brought Tato over to wish me a happy birthday. She was also toting several presents, dinner, a cake, and her old ice cream maker! We quickly started to make strawberry ice cream which despite the difficulty with the ice cream maker was incredibly easy and amazingly delicious. Jamie also made me hide in my room with Tato while she did some fun decorating in the basement room. She put a lot of effort into this and I thought it was very cool and innovative.

Then we ate dinner, opened presents, and dug into the cake and ice cream! One of the very cool things she got for me was a Popsicle maker. It has all kinds of really cool ideas for fun pops! Expect to see some here in the near future.

Bye Bye twenties. I am told that the best has yet to come.