Happy belated birthday, Rachael!

In my Twilight group of friends, there are six of us who have birthdays in April. All of us, except Rachael because she had other plans, decided to go to the Mayan, a themed restaurant, on Saturday to celebrate our birthdays together.

I had eaten at the Mayan once before, when it first opened, and the food wasn’t worth the price. I was a little skeptical, but I thought it’d be fun to go with the other women. The food has definitely improved.

Inside the Mayan, there’s a three-story cliff for divers to dive off of while you eat dinner. Basically, the divers perform in a show every 30 minutes or so. (We all thought we were cliff diving with the Quiluetes! If you don’t know what that means, read New Moon.) Our group was seated at the top of the cliff, so we could see the divers before they dived. We had a very nice view! After one of the shows, we asked one of the divers if he’d take a picture with us.

After we were done eating, we decided to go down to the bottom of the cliff and watch the show from the front. It was great!

We actually got there around 5:30 and didn’t leave until 9:00. We were just having too much fun talking and watching the divers!

Happy birthday, Kayla!

At work yesterday, Becky discovered the different filters in Photo Booth. She decided to take a picture of herself using the comic filter. After she did this, she wanted our whole team to take a picture so she could create a comic strip. Everyone was fairly cooperative, except Alan.  He’s never cooperative when it comes to taking pictures.

When I told Corey about Becky’s idea, he told me that Macs have a program, called Comic Life, that allows you to create comic strips or collages. You can even put speech bubbles in the frames. That’s what Becky used to create the comic strip. I wanted to check out the program, too, so I made a couple of quick collages.

Happy belated birthday, Brittni!

Last night, I finished reading Body of Evidence by Patricia Cornwell. This is the second book in the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.

I enjoyed the story a lot. The reason I enjoyed this novel was because it wasn’t only a mystery/thriller, but it also had a little romance in it. The only thing I don’t like about this series is there’s a little more language than I prefer.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta’s a forensic pathologist and the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. In both of the stories I’ve read, she and the police use evidence they find to figure out who the murderer is. It’s like CSI in book form because of all the forensics involved.

In Body of Evidence, Kay gets involved in the case of a brutal stabbing of an author (Beryl Madison). Then, Madison’s greedy lawyer accuses Kay of losing Beryl’s latest manuscript, an autobiographical exposé of her early life as protégé of a legendary novelist. As more deaths occur and the killer closes in on her, Kay finds herself having to deal with the unexpected reappearance of her long-lost lover, Mark James.

This is the first book I’ve read since February. My book club was slated to read Mansfield Park by Jane Austen in March, but we all became too busy with planning our work’s conference in March. Also, in my opinion, Mansfield Park is a little more difficult to get into, so I think we just gave up on it. However, now that I have more free time and I’ve finished Body of Evidence, I’m going to give Mansfield Park another try, at least until The Host is released on May 6.

My rating:

First, I want to thank everyone who came over, called, emailed, text messaged, sent a birthday card, or posted a comment on my blog, Facebook wall, or a note on one of my online forums to wish me a happy birthday today! Thank you very much!

It all started on Tuesday. From there, my birthday just became more and more awesome!

At work, the girls in my department usually wear a tiara and Mardi Gras beads to celebrate their birthday. And, I was no exception. Because Erin and Becky weren’t at work on Friday, all my friends from work and I are going to lunch on Monday to celebrate my birthday.

Yesterday, I received a couple of cards in the mail, one from my parents with money and one from Amber and Greg, my niece and nephew-in-law, with a gift certificate for iTunes. I gave the money to Corey to put toward my computer and I bought some New Kids on the Block songs with the gift certificate. Yes, you read right; I did say, “New Kids on the Block.”

When I woke up this morning, Cassie, Tigger, and Dax all loved me and wished me a happy birthday! Dax even sang at the back door! Corey wished me happy birthday first thing and also wrote a birthday message on our bathroom mirror.

After I woke up this morning, I jumped on the blog for my Twilight friends and me. Luisa made me a birthday banner. As soon as I saw it, a great big smile donned my face! She’s so good at paying attention to what the girls in our group like. The Japanese on the banner says, “tanjoubi omedetou,” which means happy birthday. The other girls in the group left me awesome birthday wishes.

After I jumped on the blog, I went to one of my online forums because everyone dons a birthday banner in their signature for the birthday person and wishes each other a happy birthday on their introduction thread. When I went to my introduction thread, I was greeted by Ewan McGregor holding a happy birthday sign! I loved seeing this banner everywhere on the forum today! I just smiled and smiled!

For lunch, Corey took me to my favorite burger joint–Coney’s! Seriously, they have the best burgers and frozen custard. We discovered them from an ad at the movie theater about two years ago and we absolutely love them.

Around 5:00, some of our friends, the Vigues and the Meyers, came over to have dinner and cake with us. Jack made me a birthday card. He told Ali he wanted to make my card purple because it was my favorite color. He wrote my name and age on the card and drew balloons and candy on the card. When he showed me the candy on the card, he said, “I made you treats!” He’s such a thoughtful, smart, and cute kid!

Corey made his famous stuffed mushrooms and I made a really good pasta dish. Yes, I cooked on my birthday, but it’s okay.

After dinner, Corey brought home my birthday cake! I’ve always wanted an ice cream birthday cake and I’ve never had one. So, this year, he got me a Cookies ‘n Cream ice cream cake with chocolate cake and polka dot icing from Baskin Robbins! He even had it personalized with, “Happy Birthday, Jenni,” on top of it. It was so yummy! Now, I really want one of these for my birthday every year.

After we ate the cake, Jack wanted to play on my computer. He loves to play with Photo Booth and the games on yetisports.org, so both us played on my computer for a while. It was a lot of fun!

After everyone left, I told Corey thank you for such a wonderful birthday. He did such a good job. I love how much he always thinks of me and makes my birthday special!

I checked our mail at 9:45 pm and I had a card from my mother- and father-in-law. They gave me a gift card for iTunes. And yes, I’ll be buying some more New Kids on the Block songs.

Thank you to everyone for making my birthday such a special and fun day. I have such a wonderful family and friends and I thank Heavenly Father every day for you! You guys are awesome!

Happy birthday, Tyra!

Corey showed this to me and I thought it was awesome! I wanted to share it with everyone because it’s so cool. In Japan, some people set up some bottles filled with water and attached springs to a remote control car. When the remote control car drives by the bottles, the springs hit the bottles and make a sound.

Happy birthday, Dave!

Yesterday, I received a birthday surprise, even though my birthday isn’t until Saturday. Corey decided to give me my present early because he wanted to spend time with me on the actual day. He knew once I got a hold of my gift, I’d want to spend most of my time with it.

Corey gave me a MacBook for my birthday. I’ve been wanting one for a few years now, but we could never really afford one. Corey got a smoking deal on this one ($800 discount). The computer was purchased by someone else, they opened the box, and never took the computer out before they sent it back to Apple. So, because it was opened, Apple couldn’t sell it at full price. Even with the awesome deal, this is my Christmas, anniversary, and birthday present for the next five years.

The neat thing about Macs is that all of them come with a built-in camera. I decided to have some fun with Photo Booth and take some pictures of me using some of the nifty effects.

Happy birthday, Erin!

A couple of behind-the-scenes-movie-clips for Twilight have been released, one by ETOnline and the other by MTV. They’re really exciting because you can start to see the actors as the characters. I’m anticipating the movie even more now and it’s not being released until December 12!