dirty thirty

So this is what 30 feels like...

Not so bad. Of course it always helps when your friends shower you with gifts and tell you how fabulous you are. I spent all of last week in Atlanta working... so initially I thought my birthday was going to be super lame since I would be at the office all day... not so. It was amazing. {Note to self... always go to the office on your birthday... people send you presents and make you feel really good about yourself.}

This was my first clue that it was going to be a good day. My boss picked me up a large Dr. Pepper, another co-worker ordered up my favorite bagel, and another co-worker brought in a Starbucks Caramel Frappachino. In order to avoid the shakes from a major caffeine overdose, I put the frap in the freezer for later. And it's a good thing... because the treats (read: major sugar high) kept coming.

My first delivery for the day were these beautiful tulips from my sweet-as-pie husband (who was flying in later that night from Louisville). Aren't they beautiful?

Then my amazing co-worker Stacie had the most incredible cupcakes delivered all the way from Crumbs in New York!! With it being only 10:00am, we decided to let the cupcakes wait until after lunch.

But I didn't have to wait too long satisfy my sweet tooth... because my mom and dad had chocolate-covered OREOS delivered to the office! Oh.my.goodness. These things were incredible. The smell of rich chocolate filled the entire office as soon as I opened the tin.

My two favorite girls took me out to Mambo Italiano for lunch where we ordered yummy soups and salads so we would be sure to have enough room for all of those cupcakes. My wonderful friend Courtney gave me the Water for Elephants book I put on my birthday list and a Starbucks gift card (you can never go wrong there).

Oh yes... the cupcakes. So here is what my assortment looked like. We had everything from red velvet, to peanut butter, to chocolate covered strawberry, to coconut cream pie... 12 mini cupcakes of pure awesomeness.

We sampled every.single.one. And the hard work was well worth the effort, no doubt.

And just in case I hadn't consumed enough sugar for the day, at about 4:00pm my entire office brought me into our break room and sang me happy birthday... with musical candles. (Yes, they make those.) It was so kind. It's times like these that make me so grateful for my work-family.

Here I am in my new office spot with all of my birthday goodies. The beautiful orchid flower and birthday balloons are from my office. Oh... and can you see those colorful plates and napkins there in the front? They have little hot air balloons on them... my mom mailed them over to me with a sweet note attached.

And this was only at my office! It just got better from here... Lance flew in that night to be with me on my 30th and we had a delicious home-cooked meal with his family. We stayed in Habersham for the weekend to attend a wedding (more on this later) and had a fabulous time.

Then when we got home I had this stash of happy mail waiting on me! And there were some serious treasures in this pile... let me tell ya.

30's not so bad folks. I think I'm going to like it here.