Bliss

Just a few pictures from this weekend that make me happy to call this tiny island home.

This is Leal. He's the one that's leaving cause he's a sillyhead like that. Check out his tattoos. You win if you recognize those symbols. He got the little one first and then decided it was too small. But instead of covering it up with a new tatt, he got the same exact thing on the other arm. Only bigger. I told you he was silly.

This is Shed. He's such a nice boy....unless he says that he's "gunna learn" me anything. Then I'll hate him.

Adams! Dustin was his sponser when he first got here. I was in NY at the time so I didn't get to meet him until after we got back. He's a delight. He's also on a diet which just makes me wanna feed him cupcakes all day long. And he doesn't know I took this picture of him.

Why does 23 feel so old to me??

I've always had high expectations for my birthday. I blame this on my parents. They threw me crazy awesome birthday parties when I was a kid that made me feel like I was the most special person on the planet on that day. I felt like the favorite child on my birthday and that I could do whatever I wanted without anyone complaining about it. If I felt like listening to MmmBop for an hour straight, so be it. It was my birthday so no one could say anything about it.

Nowadays I feel like everyone in the world should just automatically know when it's my birthday and treat me extra special for that whole day. There should parades in the street and people should be nothing but sweet and kind towards me. Because it's my birthday.

Every year I get nervous though. What if the day isn't as much of a celebration as I had been hoping? What if (God forbid) it's just like any other ordinary day??!? I blame all this craziness on my parents as well. I have had crappy birthdays and I try not to think about them but I can't help thinking to myself, "What if my birthday this year is just like the year I turned 19??"

Well, I'd like you all to know that this year was an especially good one. I was scared because I didn't have any friends or family to spend it with. So Dustin made sure it was one of the best birthdays ever. Regardless of the fact that I missed all my family and "Mountain Homies".

The day before my birthday started like this. Me taking pictures of myself while waiting for my cab to go to work. Look at the ignorance on that face. I didn't expect a thing. I had already gotten my new camera and I knew I was getting an ice cream cake the next day. I had no idea what awaited me when I got off from work later that night.

Let me explain the significance of this masterpiece. Dustin...made...them. Sure he bought the cookie dough, but that's besides the fact that he went out of his way to surprise me. He went to the commissary after work to pick up the cookie dough and the nasty purple (my favorite color!) gel stuff while I was at work. Then, he baked the cookies perfectly, decorated them and hid them somewhere when he came to pick me up. He then made me sit on the futon in the living room and presented them to me.

You have no idea how surprised and delighted I was.

Very excited as you can see here. Goodness gracious, I love this man! Oh, he also gave me a cute card that night.

The next day(my birthday), Dustin came home for lunch to find me in bed reading. Because I don't see any reason to get outta bed on my birthday unless it's to go to birthday dinner. He convinced me to get out of bed so I could spend a little bit of time with him while he ate. I didn't really wanna get up but I hadn't eaten breakfast yet and my kitchen was calling.

Dustin followed me into the kitchen and lordy lordy, there just so happened to be another surprise waiting for me on the counter! Underneath another birthday card was the Martha Stewart Cookies cookbook. I literally clutched my heart and gasped like a mad woman. You see...I've really been wanting this book. Because I like to make desserts. In case you weren't aware.

When Dustin got home from work later on that day we headed out to Chili's. We were gunna go to this (Japanese) Italian restaurant that I've heard nothing but good things about, but it ended up storming outside. The roads were pretty damn flooded and Dustin didn't wanna try and find the place in those conditions. I was OK with that because I had actually been thinking about Chili's that day and was wanting some lovely adult style drinks from there. By the way, I don't think I'll ever get tired of pictures of Dustin driving. He's too cute for words.

Then the tables got turned. I never know what to do with my face.

And then this happens. I really don't know how I achieved this look but I'm kinda impressed and disgusted at the same time. Mostly disgusted though. I look like the Grinch.

Driving hazard. But no one can get mad because it's my birthday.

But you can get mad at this. I know I did. Chili's food is actually pretty gross when you take a moment to really look at what your eating. And when you had just read about everything they add to their meat to make it easier to chew in the very popular book, "The End of Overeating." Read it. It'll make you not wanna eat ANYTHING from restaurants ever again. Oh, and then read, "Eat This, Not That!" You'll end up eating nothing for the rest of your life. It's great.

Then take closeup shots of your food with your snazzy new camera. It'll make you stop eating for the night which was probably for the best. Those tiny chicken burgers didn't agree with me later on.

Mandarin Blush. I highly recommend it. Have one...or five. Whatever rocks your socks.

After dinner and drinks (only Tara had drinks...because it was her birthday) we headed home for my cake! Hooray! I posted pictures earlier of me blowing out the candles. If you haven't seen them you probably should now. Actually, wait until your done reading this one. It's about my birthday and I don't want you to abandon it.

I liked this cake. It had strawberry frosting and oreos on top. And it had my name on it. I like when anything has my name on it.

Gorgeous.

Dustin expertly puts 23 candles on my cake for me. Twenty-friggin-three. I can hardly believe it. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering that I'm not 18 anymore.

Look at my gorgeous boy! And my cake!

I ended up getting too excited about blowing out the candles and forgot that Dustin had to sing to me. But that's OK, cause he sang later on when I remembered.

So, I wasn't the least bit sad this birthday and I had a wonderful day thanks to my pookie. The day after was pretty sweet because that's when I got all the birthday messages on facebook. So thank to everyone that said happy birthday! It makes me feel like maybe everyone won't forget me. I love you all!

Too many cupcakes and no one to eat it

I get overwhelming urges to bake things a couple times a week. It's starting to get to be a real problem though. I bake too much and then have a million cupcakes or cookies without anyone to consume them. I end up throwing at least half of them away. It's such a shame and it makes me wanna cry every time. I need therapy. For compulsive baking.

Last week I made carrot cake cupcakes with caramel frosting. I should've halved the recipe since I ended up with about 3 dozen cupcakes. I put a few unfrosted ones in the freezer because they actually ended up tasting more like muffins than cupcakes and would make an awesome breakfast. I threw out a bunch of the frosted ones today and it was extremely hard to do because they were so damn good. :( They had pineapple and coconut in them and everything.

*sigh* So pretty when they were first made. I messed up the frosting a tad and made it too soupy so I had to keep these in the fridge at all times after they were done.

This weekend we went to a going away party for one of the guys that Dustin works with. He's also one of the few guys we've actually hung out with so I wasn't too pleased with the news that he was leaving. But anyways, I wanted to bring my millions of carrot cake cuppies to the party BUT the party was on the beach and I knew for a fact that the frosting didn't stand a chance against the heat and humidity of this island.

So I made different cupcakes. I made 2 dozen chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. I wanted to play it safe and pick a recipe that I knew would come out awesome and that I wouldn't fudge up. It was a good choice. And it was a great hit at the party. Sadly though, we didn't stay long and ended up still taking about 6 or 7 cupcakes home that night.

Can someone please come and visit us so I can bake things and not have to see them go to waste?? You have no idea how perfect that'll make my life.

I don't know how I lived before without this camera

My birthday would not have been complete without a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake with 23 candles and 20 action shots of me blowing them out.

You can all thank me later.