This past week Rachel’s work sent her out to work in the Bellevue office for the first time since she moved more than 2 years ago.  And it just so happened to fall in between two vacations that we had already planned that were 3 weeks apart, which was the shortest amount of time we have been apart since she moved… but it also happened to include our birthday, so that was nice.  When we were growing up my mom always decorated cakes for our birthdays, so we decided to try and do that for each other this year.  I did a sort of watercolor frosting, that is hard to really see in the pictures because the colors are pale especially the blue on the bottom, and Rachel made a lake and mountain scene from Banff.  It was really fun.

Another tradition (that we got from our friend Joella) that we started when we were 30 was to choose some goals that we wanted to get done throughout the coming year.  We have continued it every year since and choose the same number of goals as the year we are turning.  This has been really helpful for us to focus on good things that we want to do each year… instead of just thinking about how old we are getting…  😂😂😂 I am really excited about this year!  Next week we are going to Prince Edward Island to do all of the Anne of Green Gables stuff (so we have been watching the movies in any spare time we have).  Then Vu and I are going to drive his car all along the beautiful West coast from L.A. to Seattle.  In October I am going to go to the Silos in Waco with some girl friends.  And I am really hoping this will be the year I make it out to the Farm Chicks show in Spokane in June.

Also, the last 2 weeks at church were hilarious when all of my ward members met or saw Rachel for the first time.  It has been a long time since we have been in a situation where there have been a lot of people that only know one of us and they meet the other for the first time.  And I have to say thank you to Vu for doing so many things to make my day so great!  The flowers are from him, and the florist told him my flowers had to be bigger than Rachel’s… 😂