Area 51, Take 2

My turn for a run at Area 51. 

With the end of May a few delightful things arrive. One, my front-garden poppies bloom and they are spectacular. Two, the snowball bush in the backyard is in the height of its glory. I think it's entirely in my honor, since three, it's my birthday! 

 

Only, this year, my birthday was on a Saturday. Normally, this would be a good thing. Not this year! It just so happened to be the one and only Saturday that Aspen Lakes, the camp in the Heber hills where we hold our stake young women's camp, would simultaneously have running water and no campers in attendance. And my dear, sweet, and loyal husband is the stake young men's president and in charge of rounding up helpers to go open the camp every year. It could only happen on this day. And I could not bear sending him up there and stay home to pamper myself by sleeping in and other such nonsense. 

I had a simple solution - I pretended my birthday was on Friday. I didn't really want anything for my birthday besides just having a day to myself. I got myself a drink, took myself to get a mani-pedi, went hunting for a few new shirts for work (again, more on that later), and got myself a delicious salad from R&R barbeque, where I bumped into my dear old friend Kenton and had a lovely chat for a good 15-20 minutes. Delightful day! I even spent the afternoon finishing up Anna's quilt, which is what I wanted most to do. I basically planned on that being it for my birthday, except for one little thing,

Cute Peter and Sheri really are so sweet and generous and sent me a surprise birthday gift - they sent us two tickets to go to a show called "An Inconceivable Evening with Cary Elwes." The tickets were for us to go to the Capitol Theater downtown and watch The Princess Bride, and then afterwards, Cary Elwes, Wesley himself, would make an appearance and tell stories and answer questions about the movie. Very cute idea. Peter sent us the tickets weeks and weeks ago, and he told me he barely snatched up the last ones. 

So Saturday arrived, after my lovely Friday, and Troy and I got up early. We weren't very excited about this day up in Heber, but it wasn't too bad. I mean, it was actually hilariously awful in some ways, because it was freezing cold and pouring rain. Troy and I took on the job of hosing down several of the bathrooms with our pressure washer. This included a couple of run-ins with dead mice (only one actually in a toilet) and lots of gross bugs everywhere. But it was more soggy than dreadful.

We weren't at camp as long as we expected, and it was nice to run home and decide to have a lazy afternoon which may or may not have included a nap. I was surprised when Troy and I returned and I found a couple of gifts on the kitchen table. My sweet family. I had already treated myself the day before so it was extra nice to get a couple of gifts to open. Romney and Emma had shopped together and picked out a little suede bag perfect as a small purse, and Troy and Romney worked together to pick out a pair of shoes. They are athletic shoes, which I never would have chosen, so I'm really glad they did the deciding because I really like them, and have already discovered that they are extremely comfortable.

As Troy and I were relaxing that afternoon, he decided to call our friends Mike and Katrina. He had a hunch that they were also going to the Inconceivable Evening, because The Princess Bride is their super-favorite movie. They have the costumes. They have named their dogs Wesley and Buttercup. They LOVE The Princess Bride. He just guessed that they would have tickets. Well, they didn't, but told Troy they had been considering getting them. I was doubtful they'd have any success since Peter said there weren't many left. But...I guess Peter and the Tuckfields were looking in different sections, because they got two VIP tickets! We decided to go out to dinner together first at Zao, our favorite. Then we got downtown, where Mike and Katrina let us know that their tickets were in the 2nd row AND that they came with passes for a meet and greet with Carey Elwes. How fun! I was excited for them. And then they gave the passes to us. I was actually kind of embarrassed - that is a REALLY generous gift. They claimed that because they had already met him once before it was a pleasure to give us their passes but man, I felt a little bad.

Also excited. 

The show itself was really fun - we were in the high nosebleeds but it was still really so fun. Everyone in the theater shouted out the lines along with the movie and cheered and clapped and booed - it was so fun. Then Mr. Elwes arrived on stage and told about an hour's worth of stories that were quite delightful. He answered a few questions too. Then the show ended, and we headed to the main floor to wait our turn for the meet and greet. Mike and Katrina waited with us and we had fun chatting and listening to a guy who was supposed to keep us entertained and did ok at it but not great. 

Then we were taken back, sooner than expected, because fabulous Mike hollered out that it was my birthday. At first I really didn't want him to, but then I realized that some people were getting taken back early for fun reasons, and then suddenly I felt ok about getting 100 strangers to sing happy birthday to me before we got to go back.

Meeting him was about a 30 second affair, but it was fun. He's very kind and gracious. And then we got a picture and then we got autographed books and we headed out!

That was a way bigger birthday than I was expecting. I got really spoiled. And now I'm 51....weird.