Birthday!

 Hello Interwebs!

So my birthday was this past Tuesday and I had one heck of a birthday week. First of all I took about a week off work. So from the Thursday night before my birthday until the Wednesday after my birthday. I am officially 34 years old and to be honest this feels the same as 33 so far. 

So my parents came over for the weekend. They came over on Thursday afternoon and went home on Sunday morning. We had a fun-filled weekend of many things we did not take photos of. But first thing on the agenda was Dad and I went hiking on South Sister on Friday. 

We got the mandatory trailhead sign selfie, this is a lot easier now than when dad and I first starting hiking many a year ago when it involved an actual camera propped up somewhere with a timer. 

Another selfie featuring me in my very attractive hiking hat, it keeps the sun off of my very pasty white face and prevents burning. Unfortunately it could not prevent getting eaten alive by mosquitos which were numerous and massive near the beginning of the hike. I went home with about a dozen bug bites, most of which were through my long-sleeved shirt. 

So spoiler alert, the original intention was to summit South Sister but we did not make it that far due to the snow. These photos were not even taken where we decided to call the hike and hike back down. At the worst, although the snow was very solidly packed and not terrible to walk on it was still multiple feet deep and very slippery. If I were to do this again I would definitely do so with spikes for my boots. As it was we just took a picture at our furthest point and hiked back down with plans to make it a backpacking trip in September 2023. 

This is where we turned around and hiked back down. We did between 8 and 10 miles round trip and had a great time. 

When we used to backpack and stuff when I was a teenager and in my lower twenties we always used to stop and get dinner on our way home, usually in Oakridge or Detroit (Oregon not Michigan). Since this was our first real hiking excursion since I have been over the age of 21 we stopped at Boneyard Pub for beers and food. Dad got a Diablo Rojo which is their red ale and I got their RPM which is their signature IPA. Plus we got some amazing nachos. We had a great day and got home late in the afternoon to relax the rest of the afternoon/evening. 

On Saturday we didn't have many real plans but while my partner did some yard work and things my parents and I took Ryder to the park to play and then had McDonalds on the way home. He cuddled with the grandparents before naptime which was super cute. 

After he went down for naptime we picked up our order at a nearby bakery, Ida's Cupcake Café, where we selected some cupcakes for my birthday as well as picking up the box we'd ordered for cake tasting for the wedding in October. Their cupcakes are bomb so I highly recommend. For my birthday I picked a strawberry cupcake with tequila frosting...it tasted like a strawberry margarita. We finished the day off with dinner at Olive Garden for my birthday, mainly because I like their sangria (I got a green apple one that tastes like Jolly Ranchers) and their donut dessert with raspberry sauce. 

Sunday morning we did our cupcake tasting and picked flavors for the wedding before the parents went home. I was very much done with cupcakes by the time we finished with that but decisions were made. 

Sunday afternoon was spent with my feet in the pool and stretched out on the hammock reading. It was delightful and I highly recommend both activities while on vacation. 

Monday we had a meeting at the High Desert Museum with our event planner to make some decisions about our wedding in October, including the menu, the layouts and the timeline of events. It was nice despite being about a million degrees outside. When we got back our son went down for a nap and Ben and I hung out in our little inflatable pool for the rest of the afternoon which was also delightful. 

Tuesday was my actual birthday! For my birthday Ben paid for my first tattoo. I went to Heather at Monolith Tattoo Studio to get my tattoo which is a memorial tattoo for my dad's best friend, my "uncle" who passed away back in May. 

My tattoo is his motorcycle in silhouette with red behind it (his bike and his gear were all black and red) with the words "Send Cake" underneath because on everyone's birthday along with his happy birthday wishes he'd end each message with "Send Cake" and many of us would make a point to stop by and bring him a cupcake or a slice of birthday cake or whatever. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (pain wise) but for a first tattoo I definitely don't recommend the large swathes of solid black. It's a little brutal. I love my tattoo and it might be my favorite birthday present so far. 

Finally, as always my birthday presents were largely gift cards, money, and the like so I, of course, spent it on books. And here is my birthday book haul. I got the usual cash from my grandparents, a gift card for amazon from my parents, and a gift card for Barnes & Noble from my in-laws. I also threw in about $100 of my own money to splurge on myself. 

With the money from my grandparents I bought Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series. I picked up the first book from the library recently and by the time I was about halfway through I realized that I was absolutely loving it so I bought not only the first book, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, but also the rest of the series. I have already read the first two books: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit; both of which I absolutely adored and gave 4.75 stars. 

Next I spent way, way too much money at Barnes & Noble which is especially annoying because I went there on Sunday July 10th and their big sale began on Monday the 11th so yeah...anyway I absolutely went nuts in the horror department and the only books I went in looking for were The Haunting of Gillespie House by Darcy Coates which I want to read for Summerween as well as Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert, which is the new release from the author of The Hazel Wood which I really really enjoyed. 

I was super excited about some of these but especially They Drown Our Daughters which does not come out until July 12th so I got that two days early. 

Then I splurged on Pango Books, specifically looking for older backlist horror but I also picked up a favorite and its sequel. 

Finally I had a gift card for Amazon that I also spent on books, because of course I did. I got one hardcover new release and two ebooks, pictures of which I got off the internet. 

So to just give a text list of my whole birthday book haul, here we go. 

• The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (Wayfarers #1): paperback sci fi from Amazon
• A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (Wayfarers #2): paperback sci fi from Amazon
• Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers (Wayfarers #3): paperback sci fi from Amazon
• The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers (Wayfarers #4): paperback sci fi from Amazon
• Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman: paperback horror from Barnes & Noble
• Dead Lake by Darcy Coates: paperback horror from Barnes & Noble
• The Haunting of Gillespie House by Darcy Coates: paperback horror from Barnes & Noble
• Brother by Ania Ahlborn: paperback horror from Barnes & Noble
• They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe: paperback horror from Barnes & Noble
• The Ritual by Adam Nevill: paperback horror from Barnes & Noble
• Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert: hardcover fantasy from Barnes & Noble
• The Woman in Black by Susan Hill: paperback horror from Pango 
• I Am Legend by Richard Matheson: paperback horror from Pango
• Reborn by F Paul Wilson (Adversary Cycle #4): paperback horror from Pango
• Reprisal by F Paul Wilson (Adversary Cycle #5): paperback horror from Pango
• Nightworld by F Paul Wilson (Adversary Cycle #6): paperback horror from Pango
• The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey: paperback horror from Pango
• The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey: paperback horror from Pango
• The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay: hardcover horror from Amazon
• Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach: eBook mystery from Amazon
• We Can Never Leave This Place by Eric LaRocca: eBook horror from Amazon 

So that's everything with my birthday and what I did and my birthday book haul. 33 was a pretty good year for me so now we're on to 34, hopefully it's just as good!

Happy Reading!

Richelle