Twenty-eight is GREAT!

I had the best, BEST, BEST birthday EVER this year! (And thank you everyone who sent me happy birthday wishes! :)) A few of the reasons why I couldn't have had a better birthday:

Kashmiri Naan!

Not only did we go out for wonderful Indian food, we discovered the best treat of all TIME!! Kashmiri Naan! The way this restaurant made it was to die for. Cooked inside the bread was a mixture of finely-minced pistachios, golden raisins, cardamon, and cherries. Bury me now! I'm in heaven! Sooooo good.

Over the river and through the woods....

To Grandma's house he goes! Woo hoo! (Not that any snow or sleds were involved.... :)) I'm a tiny bit ashamed to admit how incredibly nice it was to be alone with Matt for a few days. Seth is pretty awesome! But it was still really, really nice to be childless again for a weekend. :) And Seth couldn't leave us fast enough. When Grandma came to visit he picked up his stuff and started right for the door, then took half a second to turn back to me and ask: "you going TOO?" And I said, no. And he already had his back to me again by the time he said, "ok! Bye!" Out the door.... Hehe. It's fun that he loves his grandparents so much—and that we've always lived by one set or the other. He loves it. Anyway, we slept in! And went out for a nice, leisurely meal or two! And it was great. :)

Birthday breakfast!

Matt made me yummy oatmeal with fresh blackberries and whole milk. Simple, but SO tasty.

A surprise chat with Jordan!

He's a missionary in El Salvador right now, and we miss him so much that even Matt hurts over it. (Matt's usually immune to things like that. If you ask him if he even missed me while he was a missionary, he sheepishly admits that, "well, it just wasn't unexpected to be away from you, so it was, you know.... It was ok. Sorry! But I still thought of you! I just didn't miss you.... Hehe." But he really misses Jordan. We all do. :)) Not only did Jordan happen to need some medical advice on my birthday, but he managed to catch Matt at the computer so they could chat for all of about four minutes. And not only that, but it was about a freak fainting-spell he had had the day before over just bonking his knee, the day after I had freakishly fainted having a stupid mole removed! Ha ha ha! To still be laughing over my silly dermatology adventure and then to have Jordan emailing on my birthday to say that he had done the exact same thing.... It was priceless. Kindred spirits!

And then...! Ooooohhhhh!!!

Tosca!! What luck is this? Opening Night for the San Diego Opera was on my birthday! Which would have been fun no matter what, but they opened with my favorite opera! We almost—horribly almost!—decided not to spend the money. But, oh man! That would have been a devastatingly stupid decision. It turns out the San Diego Opera is a-maz-ing! (Our hopes hadn't been too high. We were so thrilled to be wrong!) Tosca has long been my favorite opera, but then San Diego's production made the other productions I'd seen look like community theatre or something. It just was...ahhh! Amazing. Matt couldn't even move during the first intermission. Just kept shivering and repeating, "that was amazing. Whoa. So creepy. Amazing. I can't move...." Hehe. (Matt had never seen Tosca—it was so fun to finally see it together!) And the second and third acts just kept getting better. It didn't feel like an American production, really—more like the British aesthetic where they aren't afraid to take their time. There were scenes where, ah!, the music would just kill you for how gorgeous it is, and nothing is happening on stage. It made it seem so much more real than the melodramatic opera story you normally see, with people strutting around and stuff just to fill time. Or when Tosca kills Scarpia, she actually took her time making her nervous exit—like a lady who hadn't woken up that morning expecting to kill a man. And he actually died sounding like he was dying! Like there really was blood coming up in his throat! How did he do it?! I wanted to die it was so good! I really love art—visual arts, music, plays, literature. But theatre, for me, beats it all by a million times. I lovvvvve it. And this—no question—was one of the best theatre experiences we've ever had. We would have paid three times that much if we had known how good it would be. (And now we know! San Diego has good opera! Is there any way this isn't the perfect place for us?! Woo hoo!)

And finally...

The sunset was amazing. The trees are blossoming like it's springtime (and some trees are still covered in autumn leaves!). Our flowers are thriving and it's been sunny and rainy, and warm and cool. It took us ten minutes to get from our house to the opera, and five minutes after leaving the theatre we were already driving along the coast...! Ahhh.... We were going home from Tosca, after a perfect day of wonderful time outside, great food and great opera, and Matt said (beaming as much as I was), "Well, Auburn, have you ever had a birthday in San Diego?!! With the best bread known to man(!) and the best opera production in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD?!!!!" And that about summed it up for me! Best birthday I could possibly imagine! Best day I could imagine! It was perfect. :)