19. Dang.

ok so I know most people think the older you get the less cool birthdays get.  I totally agree. At this point in life, I don't really want to get any older, but its gotta happen.  So this year my birthday was spent with family and my cute, but annoying nursery class. Gotta love sunday birthdays. Well mom treated me with my most favorite meal in the whole entire world: Homeade Cafe Rio.  It's kind of become a tradition for my birthday and Im not mad about it at all.  It was delicious.  I spent the rest of the afternoon doing regular sunday things like blogging, resting, family time and watching home videos.  The special this week took place exactly 19 years ago.  We got to watch mom the day before she had her first and favorite child.  We got to see me and all my cute chubbiness.  And we also got to see my dad and all my family members hold and hug me.  Grateful for the people in my life who have shaped me into the woman (eek) I am today.  Its been a wild 19 years and it's crazy to think I still have soo much living to do. AHG nervous, but excited. So after watching my cute baby-self, we had some reese's pie for dessert and then opened some presents. 

One last thing I wanted for my birthday was to visit a neighbor down the street. Not just any neighbor, but probably the coolest guy Ive ever met.  Christian owns a "reptile farm" and Ive been wanting to see it for years. literally, years now. It all started with a simple bishop visit to his house and my dad returned home with a wicked snake bite on his leg. Just kidding, but he did come home with a bunch of pictures of the coolest animals. Ever since then Ive been asking to go visit the animals but its never really happened. Finally this sunday, I was able to go visit these creatures. And it was the greatest thing ever. Christian has transformed his garage into this storage area for at least a hundred or so reptiles. First thing we got to see and hold (!!!!!) was his chameleon named skittles. Skittles is easily the most beautiful thing I have ever held.  We got to see him change color and eat a cockroach. The other cool thing about all this is that along the way, christian told us all these cool facts about these species. It blew my mind how much he knew about each one. It made me want to watch more national geographic documentaries so that maybe I could know learn a few more facts as well.

Is he not the cutest thing in the world?! Seth and mom, ya missed out.  He introduced us to a bunch of his geckos.  He has a cousin of the gila monster. Fun fact: the beaded lizard holds just as much venom as a gila monster... and after christian told us this, he proceeded to stick his hand in the cage. Cool dude. Next animal to look at were the snakes!! We got to hold one of his ball pythons. It was awesome. The feeling of the snake somewhat constricting your hand is crazy cool. I could feel all the muscles of the snake tightening around my hand, not that tight of course but it was awesome. 

He also had a couple 9 feet pythons, but sadly those stayed in the cages. Still one of the coolest things ever. Super glad I was finally able to see this amazing collection of wild animals. Coolest birthday for sure. Still can't believe Im 19. That's old. I feel like just yesterday I was playing come-to-court with the neighborhood kids and swimming in our ghetto blow up pool with no worries in the world. Still don't have too many things to worry about so life's still good, just different. I did however go on a pretty awesome camping trip with my girls the past couple of days. We headed out to powell on monday morning. We set up camp, ate lunch and swam the afternoon away. That was pretty much our routine: Eat, swim, rest, repeat. Nice relaxing getaway to hangout at the lake for a little bit. Our neighbors were a little crazy, but I feel like we always run into some crazies on our trips. These people were drunk and yelling into the early hours of the morning. So I didn't get too much sleep, but thats what to expect when camping anyways. The next day, our drunk neighbors came and introduced themselves. They were nice, but most definitely not in their right minds. Don't drink kids. Me and shawnee were up bright and early making some killer bacon on the fire we made ourselves. We were pretty proud. The bacon was killer. We got plenty sunburned and had a good time. 

Lex proved that it is indeed impossible to stand on the buoy. 

For dinner we roasted weenies and had some smore's.  We also had some fellow camping neighbors who were from Denmark. We looked over at their dinner and it included bell peppers, parmesan cheese and a type of whiskey or some alcoholic drink. Fancy schmancy. Us Americans keep it simple I guess. 

For my birthday shawnee bought me men's boxers. Apparently she wears them as lounge shorts and I'm here to say they are pretty amazing. So now we have matching boxers. 

Our tent for the night was supposedly a 3 person tent but Im calling BS. It was so tight and stuffy, but it was only one night so everyone made it through the night. Between the yelling, drunk neighbors and the uncomfy sleeping arrangements you can imagine how much sleep I got. 

haha. no glam shots while camping, that's for sure. 

I am definitely adding "cooking bacon over a fire" as one of my secret talents. 

Too many mems are made when we're together. We had a painful drive home of sitting on our sunburns and trying not to fall asleep but we made it. Last but not least, we ended the night with our snow cone of the week: Orange, Melona and Mango