23

You know those boring play-by-play entries? This is one of those.

I can't remember the last time I officially celebrated my birthday on my actual birthday. A lot of times we just do it the weekend closest to Seth's birthday and mine and Lauren's, because that's most convenient for everyone. This round my family came down to Provo on July 1st, since Seth had a performance on July 2nd. Sarah flew out from Chicago because she had the week off, so that was a brilliant surprise. We ate Cafe Rio takeout and opened presents. I made off like a bandit! I got some cycling attire, some sweet books, clothes, movies and a miniature bowling set from my unborn child. And I got some Kinder Surprise eggs.

My actual birthday was pretty uneventful. I had to be to work at 6:30 in the morning, and I was on campus till 6:30 in the evening. Greg invited us over to make goat cheese with him and Alpha. The cheese ended up tasting pretty good, kind of like mozzarella, and we had a nice evening discussing (sometimes yelling) politics, movies and how to properly run a communal farm.

On Friday, July 3rd, nine of us (Alpha, Ethan, Steve, Meg, Greg, Joey, Jessica, Ashton and I) drove down to Burraston Ponds, near Mona, for some picnicking and swimming. Someone has built some pretty high platforms in some of the trees that surround the pond, with a killer rope swing. We set up our beach chairs on the "shore" and munched on blueberry muffins and baguettes. The weather was fantastic, and it attracted a lot of the country folk from around Mona and Santequin to the rope swing. My favorite was this punk kid who vowed to swing from the highest platform and do a back flip over the pond. He swung down all right, but didn't rotate properly and ended up flailing around upside down until he hit the water. Everyone had a good laugh.

On Friday night we went to Ottavio's with Ashton's family. Before we even ordered, however, Ashton had a crippling attack of heartburn, worse than any previous episode, and mid-meal we had to jet to Smith's to buy some maximum strength Mylanta. The heartburn eventually subsided, and Ashton's family came over to check on her. They brought our food from the restaurant and birthday presents. Whitney and Brinton gave me a hilarious book - the Encyclopedia of Immaturity, and Leesa gave me some biking gloves and a bunch of other loot. It's nice to be spoiled by two families. After they left we watched When Harry Met Sally, which I thought was pretty dang funny.

So now I'm 23.