THIRTY

The title of this post is enlarged because it's a big deal. I turned 30 last week. I know, I know, I'm getting 'old', but you know what? Not really. When I was younger I thought being 30 was pretty old but once I turned 18 and progressively got more boring in life, I've decided that I've been 30 since I was 21. So now I'm more like 40, or at least that's how I feel. Well actually being pregnant makes me feel more like 70, but I digress...

For my 30th birthday I wanted to sleep and eat. Jack asked me "Where do you want to go?" I said, "Eh, I don't know, there are lots of restaurants I'd like to try in New York I guess?!" so we decided to go there. FYI, if you need good recommendations on any city anywhere in the world, I'm your gal. I pride myself in collecting amazing information from friends, articles, and the Internet of course. I do not disappoint because there is nothing Jack and I hate more than spending money on crappy food. Again, off topic.

 

Once in New York, we checked into our awesome hotel in Soho. They upgraded us because I was pregnant AND it was my birthday. Brilliant. And?! They/Jack had cupcakes waiting in our room--it was a lovely way to start our vacay. 

 Once settled we decided to go discover the neighborhood. As we were leaving our hotel we were accosted by a few men carrying bags and cameras. I had no idea what was going on, freaked out and froze in the middle of the street. Turns out they were paparazzi and they were trying to take my picture! Not gonna lie--it made my year! Until however one of them said, "Oh, guys, she's no one". Shot. down. Those two seconds were heaven though. Jack kept asking them to take my picture because he was dying laughing, I kept walking.

 The following day we fueled up with an amazing Morrocon breakfast and delicious coffee...

 Cupcake for dessert...

 And then walked it all off...

 And kept on walking. ALL THE WAY TO BROOKLYN! 

I don't think walking to Brooklyn is too bad, but walking to Brooklyn 8 months pregnant? I really thought my water was going to break at some point. I got pretty sore, my feet were killing me, I felt LOTS of pressure BUT I made it!!! With LOTS of help from Jack. He's so nice :) 

 

Once there we celebrated with a gallon of water and what else? Brooklyn pizza! 

After lunch we cabbed it back to Manhattan and visited one of Jack's fraternity brother's, Andrew who works IN the Flat Iron building. He works at a children's book publishing/illustration company so it was neat to visit his office space. 

He showed us a library of published books where he let us choose as many books as we wanted to take back to our Jackson. We were floored, and elated at the free range of books! 

 

 The remainder of the trip was spent with more eating, more wandering and a few museum visits.

 

 

I have recently discovered that Jack makes us go to museums, exhibits, etc because he does NOT want to go shopping. He knows I won't say no to any kind of exhibition and so he keeps us busy so as not to shop. I caught on to his game though on this trip because all I wanted to do in New York was shop and he kept coming up with things 'to do'.  

 Needless to say, we ended up shopping. After going to 3 different museums and loads of other excuses. It was MY birthday after all.

And where was Jackson during all of this you ask? He was having the time of his life in sunny El Paso where I'm told he swam daily for a minimum of 3 hours. He of course had a team of people watching him (it takes a team people) including (but not limited to) my mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, Mayra, Margarita, Lodis, Yoli and most likely any friend of my parent's that happened to drop by.

My parent's are very social people so when I say their friend's 'dropped by' I mean they most likely had a minimum of 2 dinner parties and 10 people come by 'just to say hi'--this is why I'm referred to as 'the boring one'. 

When we finally made it home to Austin, Jackson was waiting for us with open arms (Thank You Jorge & Mayra!) and was happy to see us. He demanded to see the contents of our suitcases but I managed to surprise him that night with all his new books laid out on his bed just in time to sleep. He couldn't believe all of his neat, new books from Tio Andrew! 

NYC--great success, and 30? Not so bad. My best gifts? My family. Jack and Jackson are my moon, my stars, my sun. My parents and brothers (and sister Mayra)--my earth. They keep me grounded, aka 'boring'. Thanks all for another great birthday, I really am a lucky girl :)