25th Birthday Extravaganza

Yesterday was my 25th birthday. I don't really get extremely hyped-up about my birthday because I'm usually busy with a lot of other stuff given when it falls in the year, but Holly likes to make sure that I always have a good day on my birthday and she always does an excellent job. I thought I would share how the day went for me and all the fun stuff that we did.

Jack woke up just before 6:00am and was wide awake, so Holly took him out to the living room to play while I got to sleep in. I took the day off of work so I could do whatever I wanted. I slept until about 8:00am which is about two hours later than I get to sleep most days and then Jack came in to play in the bed with me while Holly made breakfast.

She made me Bisquick pancakes (my favorite) along with some delicious scrambled eggs (also my favorite). I was nice and full when breakfast was over and then I played with Jack while Holly took a shower and got ready. When she was done I took my turn getting ready while Jack took his nap. He slept for a really long time and it was nice to hang around the house and do a few small things I wanted to do.

I took the day off from my job on Conquer Club as well, but I did spend some time finishing the coordinate centering for the newly revamped Brazil map. It was a fun bit of code that didn't take much time or much energy to do.

Once Jack woke up Holly wanted to take me to get my birthday presents so we packed up Jack and went over to JC Penney. Holly got me a set of really cool silver Transformers logo cufflinks that I had been wanting recently and so she wanted to get me a new shirt with french cuffs and some new sunday shoes to go with them. I haven't had new sunday shoes since before we got married and we found some great ones.

JC Penney had a great sale of buy one, get one for 99 cents on the dress shirts, so I got a white one for church and a blue one for other times. Then I wanted to take a look at some new cargo shorts to buy with my birthday money from Grandma Chatfield. They had the same sale on those so I got two new pairs as well.

After the shopping we went up to a new burger joint in town called Five Guys Burgers and Fries. I had been hearing some good things about the place and I thought it would be fun for lunch. As it turns out the french fries were just sort of alright, but the burgers were delicious. I'll probably go back sometime again.

When we got home from lunch we hung out for a little bit and then Holly and Jack made me a great birthday cake (chocolate with vanilla frosting) while I went out for a scooter ride. I don't normally get to take the scooter out for more than to just run to the store or go to and from work, but sometimes I like to go for nice rides where I don't have to start and stop all the time. The problem is that there isn't usually time for that sort of thing. It was a great day weather-wise, so Holly wanted me to go enjoy it on the scooter. I wound up going about 42 miles round trip and was gone for about an hour.

Shortly after I got home Shyla came to pick up Jack to babysit while Holly and I went to dinner at Gloria's Little Italy in downtown Provo and then to the movies to see the new Star Trek movie. The dinner was delicious and the movie was great and it was an awesome finish to my birthday extravaganza.

Turning 25

Yep, it is finally arriving, the quarter-century mark is approaching fast for me and in a couple of weeks I'll be officially 25 years old. I can remember a time when I thought turning 25 would be a really big deal, and perhaps it still is in some manner, but after having been married for almost three years, having one child with another on the way it seems like turning 25 is just the same as turning 24, or turning 26 will be next year.

I'm not a big birthday party type of person because I'm not really a party person in general and now that I'm older I'm not exactly sure what makes a good "birthday party" anyways. Holly keeps telling me that I should at least do something, but the problem with that is that my favorite activity is taking her to dinner and a movie; something we do all the time, so it isn't really "special" for my birthday to be honest.

The only thing I've ever wanted to do was go to this big go-kart track up in Salt Lake where you can pay to have you and a group of your friends do some qualifying laps and then a nice long race. The problem is that it is about $30 per person, which I can't afford to pay for everyone and I'm certainly not going to ask people to pay for themselves, so that idea is out. It would certainly be fun someday though. Maybe when I'm not a poor college student anymore or something.

Holly has also been asking for a birthday list, but I don't have much to put on one at the moment. It seems like all the stuff I want or need is far out of an acceptable price range right now. Regardless, here is a list for you sweetheart of at least a couple of things:

• Transformers Cufflinks
• Hardcover copy of Mistborn
• Hardcover copy of Well of Ascension
• New Sunday Shoes
• Briefcase/Laptop Bag
• iTunes Gift Card
• Tinted Helmet Visor

This Should Make Mom Happy

No, I don't have my hip measurement yet because I have no clue how to do a hip measurement and I don't have a measuring tape or a piece of string available.

However, Mom is always on our case to make birthday and christmas lists and so forth, and thankfully, now that I've finished my mid-term for Russell's class this will be easy as pie for Mom now. Aren't you happy, Mom?

You can find the solution here: Wants & Wishes

This website will allow everyone in the family to set up an account, add whatever they want to their list with a url so Mom can see what it is, how much it costs, how bad they want it, and add descriptions and comments to help Mom out with her shopping needs.

Right now, don't go registering as I'd like to get it transferred over to my personal server first. BYU won't let me keep it on theirs beyond the last day of class, so I've got to talk to Russell about how to export my databases first. After that, Mom should never have any trouble again.

See, Mom, I do make your life easier... sometimes.

Kanye West and Rihanna

For Holly's birthday this year I decided to go all out with one really big present instead of a bunch of smaller ones and get her tickets to the Kanye West concert she had been begging to go see for what seemed like forever. Now, the concert was on June 9th, and her birthday was on March 30th, so she had to do a little bit of waiting for the entire thing to happen, but in her opinion it was worth every second of waiting when she got to see Lupe Fiasco open up the night, followed by Pharrell and N.E.R.D. (she almost peed her pants in excitement when he went on stage), a little bit of Rihanna after that, and finally a 90 minute set by Kanye West himself. Here are a couple of somewhat decent pictures I managed to sneak on my cell phone of the Kanye West portion of the evening:The people at the E-Center were really intense about searching everyone before they went into the arena because I guess Kanye and Rihanna both did not want any cameras on the premises, so we had to get an actual pat-down before they would check out tickets. It was a little extreme if you ask me, especially since the arena was only about one third full when all was said and done.Holly was on her feet dancing and screaming away the entire time while I was just taking it all in and hoping my heart wouldn't skip a beat with the huge amount of bass pumping through the speakers. Out of the entire night, the only performance I really paid much attention to was the one by Rihanna because her music actually sounds like a song with a melody instead of the half talking/half screaming variety of the other three acts that evening. Most of my pictures of Rihanna came out really badly because she has some really bright lights going on during her performance, but I did manage to get one good one I can post:Holly had a great time, and that was the important thing. Megan was supposed to go with her on a fancy girls night out to scream their hearts away, but that plan fell through and so I was the escort for the evening. I don't think Holly minded too much in the end.