2011 Birthdays: Amy's 34 & Patrick's 37!
Posted by Amy Evelyn Oden , Thursday, October 20, 2011 9:24 AM
This September 23rd, I turned 34 in style, with a dark chocolate raspberry mousse cake at staff meeting, a special surprise of getting to have lunch with my cousin Eric, his wife Leigh Anne, and kids Emma & Caleb while they were in Pasadena for a visit, opening gifts in the afternoon, and dinner at Cafe Beaujolais in Eagle Rock. I indulged in a lovely cauliflower soup to start, a divine parmesan encrusted halibut with champagne sauce to middle, and profiteroles to end. Though Patrick's choice of creme brulée for dessert was definitely the better choice there. It was a perfect Amy birthday! (Though with limited photographic evidence.)
Then, since I had a Friday birthday, we escaped to the mountains for the weekend & enjoyed some family time with the Odens & some nature. Although (perhaps due to all the rich food the day before) I was miserably ill with pregnancy sickness, everyone made the best of it & let me lie on the couch (in between sprints to the bathroom) as much as I needed. Definitely memorable :-).
For Patrick's birthday, we were more adventurous! We took advantage of some flier miles which got us a place for the night in San Diego and spent a Saturday at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
There were babies everywhere...here, a baby water buffalo...
Loved the lions!
The very new baby elephant. This drew a huge crowd. Patrick also made a super cute video of it, which you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/user/dualravens#p/a/u/0/c2m_PmRSEmw
Baby gorilla...
I'm about 3 months pregnant here (it was still largely a secret)...and having a good (that is, not too sick) day! We found that getting me out doing things was a great way to curb the nausea.
A birthday drink to end a lovely day!
On Sunday, we found ourselves with a free morning while waiting to meet up with Patrick's long time friend Peter so we decided (since we were right there) to take a tour of the Maritime Museum, a collection of ships that sit along the San Diego harbor. Patrick loves ships & sailing so he was thrilled - and especially that one of the ships was the HMS Surprise, a replica built for the movie Master and Commander. I was enjoying it until I got slammed with an aggressive wave of pregnancy sickness...and even being out & about wasn't able to stifle it this time.
Later that day, we enjoyed a fun visit with Peter, who gave us a driving tour of San Diego's wonders, enticing us even more to move there (it's on our list of preferred re-locations). We also got to meet the intentional community of believers from his neighborhood, which was cool to see after hearing about it for a couple years now.
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