Birthday: Second Half

This weekend was kind of a second birthday celebration, since last weekend was taken up with Joseph's graduation (my youngest brother! Graduated! So weird). To begin with, Friday night we went out with my parents, Joseph, and Daniel (which wasn't about birthdaying, but about getting out of the house while Benjamin threw a wild college party for his friends). That was a really lot of fun. Then yesterday we went to lunch with Lori, Meredith, Zach, Bethany, and Dave, and had some fantastic tacos in Dallas. Then we went to Half Price Books--because we are not a group of people to skip checking out a location we've never been to--and Meredith and I spent the HPB gift cards we'd just received as birthday gifts from the lovely Bethany. 


We did a bit more hanging out in the afternoon, and at various points Bethany and Dave and Lori had to leave, so we ended up with Meredith and Zach--and we decided to spent the evening going to Choctaw in Oklahoma. It was pretty fun, although I didn't do any gambling. Mike and Meredith played the slots, and Zach actually did win some money playing blackjack (while I learned that I can't do math in my head fast enough to be able to play that game). As Mike's manager, I allowed him a strict $20 limit; he spent $19 then actually won $8.50 back, so we ended up only spending about $11. Not bad for your average night out.


Today we went to Dafni and Brandon's and had a joint birthday celebratory dinner for me and Benjamin, who is turning 20 tomorrow (weird!). I got to see my Goose, had a delicious dinner, was presented with yummy cake, and got my last round of presents! (Then on the way home our car overheated and we spent about 45 minutes cooling down the engine and getting coolant and all kinds of things, so that was fun.)


Anyway. It's been a lovely birthday, and I ended up with a whole new group of presents from this weekend, so I will now share them with you because I know you are so interested.


Round two:

• a new pair of jeans from Dafni and Brandon, plus a promise from Talia to go shopping for some more
• this amazing copy of Wuthering Heights from Talia, since she wanted to have something to give me today
• this beautiful copy of Alice and Wonderland from Meredith, who made sure to tell me that this wasn't all I was getting (even though I told her it could be!)
• the Half Price Books gift card I mentioned from Bethany (which was used to purchase a copy of The Goose Girl and Enna Burning, which I have looked for at every HPB location I've been to in the last year and have never found the versions I want until yesterday when there they were!)
• and finally, from my parents... a new camera!!! This one was a total surprise because I hadn't even begun to start thinking about being able to buy a new one after the old one has become so sadly beat up. I am very, very excited. 

So once again--thank you, everyone! I am feeling very lucky lately, because I have some really wonderful people in my life and even though things are rough, I have a lot of things to be thankful for. 2011 has had some serious ups and downs, but halfway through the year I think I can say I'm in a pretty good place.