My Birthday Extravaganza!

My 30th birthday was Saturday, July 14th. On Friday, I drove up to MD (with Pax in tow) for a night with a few of my favorite ladies. The day started off at my friend Brandy's house (who also has a new baby, Lea). Pax and Lea enjoyed hanging out on Lea's play mat.

Paxton also enjoyed a cat nap in Lea's swing.

My mom came over to visit before Bran, Pax, and I went over to Steph's for the night.

Brandy, Stephanie, April, Jen, and I had an incredible dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. We chatted and ate for several hours, sharing all kinds of good news and stories (Love you, girls!). And Tony (Steph's husband) watched Pax while we went out to dinner (Thanks, Tony!).

My actual 30th birthday was on Saturday. I drove home in the morning and we went out for ice cream after the twins' nap. Before we left, we had a conversation about gum. And shoes.

Of course I wore my traditional "Yippee! It's my birthday" necklace all day!

On the way to the ice cream shop (which, by the way, was the very first time the twins had ever been to an ice cream shop), we asked G & V what kind of ice cream they wanted. Vivi immediately said "PINK!" and Gavin yelled "BLUE!" We were relieved when we arrived and there actually was blue and pink ice cream. They each got to pick two toppings. Gavin picked gummy bears and chocolate shavings for his blue cotton candy ice cream. Vivian picked gummy bears and waffle cone pieces to go in her pink strawberry ice cream. We all shared.

Well, Vivian was a little stingy.

Gavin kept begging me to fish out the gummy bears for him.

While we were eating, it started to POUR outside. We wanted to go to the park after ice cream, so that plan was shot. We then decided to go to the mall and take photo booth pictures. We drove over in the pouring rain and by the time we parked the van, there was a major flood outside. (So much so that we found out the next day that the majority of JMU's campus was completely under water. See the videos below taken by some JMU students.)

(Water is not supposed to go through that tunnel, by the way. People walk through it normally.)

Anywho, there was WAY too much water to get out of the van. We sat in the van (the twins were roaming free and I was nursing Pax) for about 30 minutes waiting for the rain and water to subside with no luck. So we went back home and sat outside of our house in the van for about 15 more minutes until things calmed down a little bit. Then we RAN in.

Since there was a small river in our backyard, we couldn't play outside for the rest of the day (which is usually what we do). Wes broke out the play-doh and we just made stuff all afternoon.

As usual, my birthday was incredible (I've always thoroughly enjoyed my birthday- it's my favorite day of the year!)! And let me tell you, thirty feel fan-freakin'-tastic!