Golden Birthday!

Well, it has been a long time, hasn't it.  Dear me.
Just a quick recap before I write a post about my birthday.

In February I was able to take a trip home to San Diego for President's day weekend.  It was SO lovely, as you can imagine.  I mean, its San Diego, and it was around 80 degrees.  I had been living in winter and San Diego is just so opposite.  I got to spend some time with my friends.  I always miss them so much.
We enjoyed the lovely sunset at the beach.  I could barely take its beauty.  Didn't want to leave.  I mean, I was walking barefoot, in shorts, on the beach, in february.  It had never been strange to me before because I grew up in SD, but suddenly, it was just weird.
As you can see from my picture, I was sporting true San Diego pride (and my yoga flexibility) for some fun pictures, taken for the soul purpose of making people jealous that they weren't there. :)
Its always hard to leave San Diego, and it is getting harder to not know when my path will take me back to live there.  For now, I have a great job and am so excited to start school at BYU, which means I have comitted to be away for a long time, as I knew I would when I moved.  But like I said, its still hard.  San Diego is my home and my heart.  Anywhere in California is great, but nothing will ever compare to the wonderful Sun Paradise.
For now I am enjoying life and discovering new things with new people.
Oh, but I can't forget the other reason it is so hard to leave home.  Exhibit A, the most adorable niece ever:  She's almost 18 months old and she's taking over the world with her cute-ness.  It is hard to see her so infrequently, especially cuz she isn't old enough to remember me over long periods of time, so when I AM home, she is sometimes shy with me.  But it won't always feel like that, and at least with modern technology, I get to see how much she grows in the pictures and videos that her mommy posts.
Eric, Lora, Rachel, and Sophie: I love you all!

So- back to my life here in Provo:  we had a ward formal dance which was really fun- but a little bizarre.

It was formal, but it was a Luau. A formal Luau. I feel like this is all sorts of contradiction.  But we rolled with it.  Lindsay, being Hawaiian, rocked it.  She wore her white hawaiian party dress with a beautiful hair piece.  I wore my nice blue dress with all the jewelry accessories and hair clip that had pretty blue plumerias (all of which were gifts from Karen).
But guess what- it got weirder.  What kind of food did they serve at this Luau?  Mexican catering.  yep.  It was delicious- but I was just SO confused by this dance theme.
The company was fantastic.  You can see here our dinner table which was just thrown together semi-randomly.  I came with Lindsay and Kaitlyn and we chose a table.  But having much YSA event experience, I told the girls: "leave everyother chair open so that guys will sit in between us."  They laughed but followed suit and we waited as we watched people arrive.  Most people noticed that we had left spaces open and they chuckled.  But guess what.  This is a plan that never fails.  Notice in the picture, with no coaxing necessary, those spots got filled, with Men.  Success! People should always listen to me.
Here are some other pictures from fun random activities.
We decided to have a home-cooked meal together with the guys, so we all made a contribution for the meal.  It was the first time I ever made sweet-potatoes and they were SO GOOD.  I am now obsessed and eat them every week.  It was a lovely Sunday meal.
Our work had an ice-skating day in March for everyone who was at work for 90% of their scheduled hours in February.  We got to take someone, too, so I brought Kristen.  She doesn't love ice-skating but I convinced her to join me and she ended up doing really well.  She didn't give up and even let me coax her multiple times into getting out on the ice and moving her feet.
"Glide...and pivot. Glide...and pivot."
Well, mostly just gliding.  I don't even pivot, or turn really.  But this was a really fun ice-skating day because I stayed out on the ice so long that the normal foot-death-pain went away.  That had never happened before.  Ice-skating is always so much fun but I could never do it for long because my feet just can't handle it.  But I didn't know that there was some sort of thresh-hold that once you pass your limit, it just goes away.  It was a marvelous revelation.  I am a HUGE fan of ice-skating.
Also in March:
I got to fly home for Karen's first time in the temple.  It was wonderful to be home again, only a month after the last time.  Kristen didn't get to come with me and she was greatly missed.
The temple was beautiful, and it was great to see so many friends and family for that occasion.
We went out to Souplantation for dinner after and took up a good number of tables in the back room.
We had a very full, fun house.  Katie and Ryan had been visiting the whole week before I even got there.  Jeannie and Penny were also able to come down.  It is an interesting experience to be a guest in the house where you grew up : I stayed in Kristen's room with Domino, who would harldy leave me alone whenever I was on Kristen's bed.  I did enjoy her company, though.  I have not had any relation or connection with her since I left on my mission.  She used to worship the ground under my feet and follow me everywhere, very quick to cuddle on my belly and give me massages.  But I got used to having a cat-mess free room on my mission, so after the mission, she wasn't allowed in my room unless invited.  But she didn't like me much anyway so it wasn't much of an issue until Kristen left for college.  THEN things got hard and I took pity on her sometimes and she would visit me in my room.  But it was never like it was before the mission.
Why am I going on about the cat?  Well, the very next weekend, after I returned to Provo, Domino passed away.  Everyone should know, that even though the last years of her life were hard and I didn't show her the love she deserved.  I DO love her and I miss the years we used to have.  She and Tigerlily were my roommates, my friends, my cuddle buddies, and they both seemed to know when I needed extra love.  When I was crying in my bed or sick or tired, they would sit on my chest and purr away my sadness.  They lived with me, on my bed and always under my feet, for 16 years.  I love them dearly even though they are gone.
When I was alone with Domino in Kristen's room a week before she passed, I was cuddling with her and I was remembering her sister, Tigerlily, who I missed very much.  And I looked at Domino, I said, "why are you still here?  What are you holding on to honey?  You can go now.  You will be happy.  You won't be alone."  I'm not making this up.  I really did say those things outloud.  I hope she didn't suffer, but I know that she was very sick at the end.
So now you all know.  I really did love her very much and I'm grateful I had my own goodbye, even though I didn't know how close the end was.  I didn't get that with Tigerlily, and to some degree, I felt like I owed to them both to have a loving goodbye.
Well, I'm done being sappy about this, and I still have more stuff to share.
Birthday week!
For my birthday week I treated myself to lots of fun activities with friends and family.  We went to go see Divergent, which is SUCH a good movie you guys!  I love it so much that I've seen it 4 times in theaters already.  Tuesday nights are always really cheap, which is SO great.
We had a party at my apartment with a lot of fun golden decorations of which you can see a few in this picture.  We also have a lot of twirly golden streams hanging all over the living room, and they are still there a month later because we just seem to love them a lot.

It was a weird rainy night, but not really rainy, more like a hard snow that wasn't hail but it was loud!  But we had our door open and some people from the ward came to stop by and we played some fun games.
I had a birthday nap on Thursday, I was so tired from all the things I had been doing that I just slept after work.  It was wonderful.
Friday night, McKenna and I did henna on our hands and feet.  It was so much fun, and I ADORE henna.  My foot design stayed on for a month, but you can barely see it now :(
The henna was just something we really wanted to do, but it was a perfect idea because on Saturday McKenna and I went to the color festival at the Krishna temple.  It was my first time and it was incredible!  You can see more pictures on my photography and facebook pages, but here are a few.
It was really fun to get so dirty, but chalk does NOT taste good.  There were a couple times when I happened to open my mouth, though I mostly kept it closed, and enhaled a little chalk, but the worst was when a whole glob flew into my mouth and it was so hard to get out.  Plus, it was purple.  It didn't come off my teeth easily.
Showering was really fun, let me tell you.  I thought most of the chalk got blown out of my hair, but what I didn't realize and couldn't see was that there was probably a full layer of purple chalk all over my scalp, but my hair was hiding it.  I looked down in the shower water and saw completely opaque dark purple water.  And it just kept coming out.
5 or 6 thorough rinses like that and I finally had most of my hair cleaned out.  When I looked at the pictures later, I could see how I was decieved.  Look at my hair, mostly just a little remaining yellow and orange on some of my hairs, but most of my bun and everything was pretty clean.  But the whole thing looks very purple because underneath is enough purple dust to make a zen garden.


Okay- I'm gonna start the April stuff in a new post because I need a break from all of this typing.  So I'll just publish this one and be done!  Yay!