My 23rd Birthday!

Yesterday, May 21st, I celebrated my 23rd birthday! Is it weird that 23 feels old to me? I know it's not but it's obviously the oldest I've ever been haha.

I started off my birthday by going for a short run to earn my "Extra Frosting" badge on my nike app for running on my birthday. Totally worth it if you ask me, even if it is virtual cake. I ran 3.33km for my 23rd birthday. The weather was gorgeous!

When I got home, Jared surprised me with my birthday present. He got me a pink kitchen aid blender. So pretty! It works like a charm and gives me an excuse to throw out my old crappy blender now. 

We went for breakfast at Cora's after. I simply love Cora's just because of how much fresh fruit they pile on whatever you order. It's mouthwatering. To celebrate the decade I was born, I decided to get the 1990's harvest which was pretty darn tasty.

Can you believe it?? Jared actually smiled nice for one of my pictures! It must have been my birthday or something.

 As soon as we finished breakfast, we headed over to the Calgary Zoo as per my request. I love seeing all of the animals. I was especially excited to see the new exhibit, the "Penguin Plunge", and it definitely didn't disappoint. That was my favourite part of the trip. Of course, I loved seeing all of the other animals as well.

The giraffe on the right was literally drinking and gargling the other giraffe's urine. Seriously funny and gross but I guess they do it for a legitimate biological reason? Weird.

Zoo ice cream is the bomb!

After the zoo, I ran a few errands and then Jared and I met with some friends in Edworthy Park to have a campfire and roast some hotdogs and marshmallows to finish off my birthday. It was Jared and I, Dustin and Irena Quinton, Gustavo and Marjie Soares, and Nathan Maret. I didn't get any pictures while we were at the park, but we had a great time. We roasted some hotdogs and marshmallows, threw around a frisbee for a while and enjoyed visiting with one another. I almost fell in the fire pit at one point, but I can now say I have lived to see past my 23rd birthday! 

However, it turns out that that didn't end up being the end of my birthday extravaganza. Work ended up calling me desperate for someone to work the night shift that night. I figured I would give myself the gift of overtime and decided to work. When I got there, my co-worker Shbina had made some chocolate chip pancakes with some of the other patients for me for my birthday. It was so sweet! One of my patients even called me into her room to wish me a Happy Birthday. I was so touched. Something so simple can definitely go a long way. I definitely ate all of these pancakes on the night shift.5

 Overall, I really enjoyed my birthday. There were no low-points in my opinion. Even though we didn't do anything too terribly fancy, I still really enjoyed spending it with Jared and my friends. I know this year brings many more blessings and I sure hope that my 23rd year of life is not how the band Blink 182 describes it-- "Nobody likes you when you're 23". I really appreciated all of the birthday wishes I received and am excited to be living another wonderful year on this earth!

Backstreet Boys!!

On May 16th, I got the fantastic opportunity to go see Backstreet Boys in concert at the Saddledome with my friend Laura and her friend, Vanessa and her husband Dey.

Words cannot explain how epic this concert was! I was on my feet the entire time dancing and shouting out the words to all my favourite songs. They had some newer ones that I wasn't too familiar with, but I still enjoyed it. They can definitely put on a show!!

This is basically what we did the entire concert!

Baby's first concert! I hope I didn't deafen my child.

Such a blast! I think I can promote this concert to my all-time favourite that I've been to so far. The nostalgia was nuts. Tons of screaming women, anywhere from the age of 8 to the age of 60! If they come back to Calgary, I definitely want to go again. Definitely an awesome early birthday present.

Mother's Day 2014

This year for Mother's Day, we were able to make a trip down to Cardston to spend the weekend with my parents. Jonathan and Amanda were there and, to my surprise, Brian and Sarah were also there. They had made the long trip from Lloydminster to surprise my mom. This weekend is always a double-whammy for my mom since her birthday and Mother's Day usually fall on the same weekend or at least in the same week. Because of this, I felt it was even more important to celebrate together with everyone.

We arrived on Friday, May 9th, my mom's birthday! I picked up some supplies from Target before leaving Calgary and decorated the house with pink streamers and balloons to add a bit of festivity. Brian proved his house-wife skills and baked up an angel food cake for dessert that evening. Mom and Natalie had a fun time blowing out the candles together.

We played lots of games during the weekend. My dad and I were a pretty good team in beating others at Rook. We also played some Trivial Pursuit (the old-school edition that only Mom, Dad, and Jonathan know any of the answers to), Wizard, and a few other card games. Jared, Jonathan and Brian occupied themselves by playing Magic. 

Eventually Mother's Day rolled around and we had some gifts in the morning. Jared got me a lovely 1.5 Litre bottle of ketchup, my life-blood. Yes, I love ketchup a lot! Definitely a memorable gift for my first Mother's Day. 

It was definitely a special Mother's Day. I always like to celebrate my mom since she's done so much for us and expects so little in return. She's always sacrificed her time and efforts for us, even when we didn't ask for it. This was true this weekend as Saturday afternoon she whipped up a couple batches of buns despite the effort and the fact that I don't think she particularly wanted to do it. Those buns have crack in them or something, I swear. Sooo good.

In addition to my own mother, I also appreciate my Mother-in-Law who also puts so much effort into building up her family. She is a great example to me as well, especially for dealing with those Rasmussen boys.

Otherwise, it was a different feeling on Mother's Day for me as well. This is the first year (for obvious reasons) that I feel that I've actually been able to celebrate Mother's Day for myself even though I know you don't need to be a mother to celebrate this holiday. It felt nice to not feel guilty taking a rose from one of the young men after sacrament meeting. It was weird having my family tell me "Happy Mother's Day".

Definitely a memorable weekend that I enjoyed spending with family!

Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo 2014

This year, Jared and I decided to attend the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo (CCEE) as a mini vacation for ourselves. Jared is not going to PAX in Seattle this year so he decided to do this instead. We bought weekend passes so that we could attend Thursday through Sunday, April 24-27. We had an awesome time although I think I still need to work on my inner nerd since I didn't get a lot of the costumes or references throughout the weekend.

Since people usually dress up or cosplay for the expo, Jared decided to dress up as Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Jared had his whole costume planned including carrying a golf-bag carrying a hockey stick, baseball bat, and golf clubs. The day before the expo started, Jared discovered all of these were explicitly banned as weapons from the expo. Waa waaaaa. Jared ended up using the golf bag anyways but used it to carry a poster-tube instead.

Jared's "Casey Jones" costume.

Obviously Jared wasn't the only to dress-up for the expo. There were tons of cool costumes including aliens, ninja turtles, X-men, super heroes galore, and many more. I only happened to take a few pictures of people that dressed up, but they were pretty impressive.

Belle and the Beast

Optimus Prime!

Our friend, Emily, also put a lot of time and effort into making her costume for the weekend. She dressed up like "Elsa" from the recent Disney movie "Frozen". She did an awesome job!

Emily's costume from the back. She left glitter wherever she went.

Emily's "Elsa" costume.

On Thursday, Jared and I stood in line to get a photo with Giancarlo Eposito. He's famous for his television acting, particularly in the series Breaking Bad which just ended last year. I've never watched the show but Jared is a big fan. Basically, Giancarlo's character is famous for killing people with a box-cutter...pretty scary. I didn't realize until after the picture was taken that he was actually holding a box-cutter to my neck...uhhhh.

Giancarlo Esposito holding a box-cutter to my neck. Yikes!

We saw quite a few famous people over the weekend. I happened to snap a picture of Tom Felton, famous for playing Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, even though I wasn't supposed to. I didn't exactly feel like waiting in line and paying $40 for a photo with him...sorry.

Over the weekend, I was most excited for The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings aspect of it. 

Me and my buddy Smeagol/Gollum.

They had Sean Astin (who played Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings) and Billy Boyd (who played Peregrin "Pippin" Took in the Lord of the Rings). I was able to attend a panel with both of them on Saturday morning and enjoyed hearing about their experiences filming the movies. Jared and I attended another panel on Sunday morning with Sean Astin. We were extremely lucky to get a place near the front of the line because the line-up for him was HUGE! I couldn't believe how close we actually were to him.  It was definitely cool.

Sean Astin 

Jared was most excited for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aspect of the expo, hence his Casey Jones outfit. Jared got autographs and a photo with Kevin Eastman, the creator of the ninja turtles and the original cartoon. On Saturday, Jared also got to meet some of the voice actors from the original cartoon. We met with Jared's friend Mindy and her boyfriend James and all got in together for a group shot with the voice actors. I think Jared cried for joy. 

The voice cast of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon plus Mindy, James, Jared and I.

One cool thing that we got to attend was the "Aliens Exposed" show after the expo on Saturday night. Our friends Nathan & Emily volunteered throughout the weekend for the expo so they were able to get us free tickets for the event. This was the first time the cast of the Aliens movie had been together since the movie. They all seemed pretty cool, I guess. The most exciting part was when Sigourney Weaver walked out on stage and everyone started yelling and cheering loudly. She has been in quite a few  movies but is well-known for her role as "Ripley" in the Alien series. 

It was a great weekend, overall. We did a LOT of walking and got quite a bit of merchandise which Jared was really excited about. It was a nice break from the usual and nice for Jared and I to spend some time together, even if we were surrounded by thousands of other people. Definitely a successful weekend!