Adventures in Turning 30.

Since I had my birthday party a week before I actually turned 30, I wasn't really anticipating much more celebrating on the real day. Of course I hoped we'd acknowledge it somehow, but I knew we'd be in Jersey for the wedding and really didn't care what we did. For that reason, we made no plans past attending the post-wedding brunch on my big day.

What followed that was what I've been calling my "fly by the seat of your pants" birthday. See, we had no idea what we were going to do, and did not bother to stop and plan it out that morning. Instead, we went and had the most DELICIOUS brunch, thinking it would all fall into place eventually. The hotel where the brunch was held happened to be right on the beach, and would you believe that New Jersey actually has NICE beaches? Forgive my ignorance on this subject, it's just that every time I'd ever heard any mention of the beach in NJ, I (rather unfortunately) thought of used syringes and trash. Where exactly this came from, I do not know. But let's just say when I heard the wedding was near the beach in New Jersey, my brain did not jump to, "Oh! We'll be at the beach for my birthday!"

And so I was pleasantly surprised to find that right in front of me was somewhere I actually *wanted* to spend time! :) Luckily I had thrown our bathing suits in the suitcase in case there was a pool at the hotel, and we tote travel blankets around with us all the time, and Bryan had brought a couple of folding chairs. (He's smarter than me about the Jersey Shore.) And so when I said to Bryan, "You know what I'd really like to do today? Just sit on the beach and read my book," he made it happen.

So the middle part of my birthday was spent doing exactly that:


After a few hours on the beach, it was time to move on. Again, we had no plan. Join our brother-in-law and nephew at the Phillies game? Go to Atlantic City? Go visit the other in-laws? Go home? Go somewhere else? And Bryan said, "Are the Yankees playing?" And they weren't. But the Mets were. So since we were (a little) closer to New York City than Philadelphia, we hopped on the Garden State Parkway and headed north to Shea Stadium and watched the Mets beat the Marlins. It was a blast.



On the way out, since neither of us had ever actually driven in NYC, we decided we just had to drive through Times Square. What an experience. I was quite relieved that it was Bryan driving and not me!

I have to say, it was quite a wonderful birthday. Made the whole concept of being "over the hill" now a little easier to deal with. ;-)