my portland birthday

the celebrating began on thursday, the day before my birthday, when josh's sister alli (in town for work from seattle) stopped by for a brie + apple sandwich lunch, bearing red velvet cupcakes from cupcake jones in downtown portland.

the next day was, truly, my best birthday ever. joshy really treated me like a queen, & it was a blessed day. i got to sleep upstairs in the little guest nook so that i could really sleep in. josh woke up at 7 with heron, then served me breakfast in bed at 8:30.

after breakfast + some luxurious time alone, i walked downstairs to this peaceful scene:

: heron & i read books & wrestled while josh prepared the presents :

: just like last year's christmas, heron loved the wrapping paper :

(josh totally surprised me & bought a mac laptop, the very day after heron had eaten a vital part of the ENTER key of my old, decaying PC... it's really cool that my birthday gift was a valid business expense, and will be used not in only in our business, but in my future art + development classes, as well)

we played with my new "toy", ahem, "tool", then picked up our friend brian from downtown. brian's an old friend from muncie, now living in vermont. his wife happened to be in town for conferences this week, and he was free during the days. we hung out here, then ventured into the city to see gala's art at half/dozen gallery.

then, off to the rose gardens!

we dropped brian off, then headed back to our neighborhood for some lomo saltado at del inti, our first experience of peruvian + northwest fusion food.

finally, heron was put to bed, and josh & i watched "this american life" episodes on the new laptop. what fun! and what a perfect day... turns out being thirty three really isn't so bad after all.