Adventure #17: School Stuff and My Birthday

"We turn not older with years but newer every day." - Emily Dickinson

September 2-12, 2014

Okay, so I had some left over apples, and my sister-in-law Mary inspired me to make apple pie.  I'm glad I did though. It was delicious! I didn't make everything from scratch - I cheated on the crust, but I was still proud of it. Jordan was in charge of putting the foil on the crust and taking it out of the oven while I was at Costco. I have to say, Jordan's timing was perfect.

I also started my last semester at BYU! And what's even better is that I don't even have to go to campus! I'm doing student teaching this semester and then I'll graduate in December! The first four weeks of the semester I get to work with a 6th grade class, focusing on English Language Learners. The last ten weeks I get to work with a 2nd grade class and I get to fully run the class for about 4 of those weeks. 

My second week in my first class, the school had a potato truck come....

It was kinda cool, but kinda random. We found out the giant potato is made of concrete and it just stores the tour people's stuff. Like I said, kinda cool but kinda random.

Something else that is great about starting school is getting to celebrate my birthday. I only say this because Jordan always makes my birthday a special day for me. This year, he told me to keep my birthday night open. He didn't tell me any of our plans, because what's the fun in that? We started driving up to Salt Lake City and we pulled in to a restaurant parking lot. Only problem is, we pull in to see two men waiting for us and a sign that says "Complimentary Valet Parking." 

Immediately I think to myself that we are a little underdressed for this place. We were wearing nice shirts and nice jeans, but still, we were wearing jeans. Also, our car was filled with all sorts of junk and our car was not the cleanest on the outside either. I'm pretty sure we stuck out like a sore thumb. All we could see as we looked around the parking lot were nice looking Jaguars, Denalis, Land Rovers, Mercedes, Porsches, etc. 

The two men helped us out of the car, got our keys, and parked our car. I wish I could have captured our faces as we walked up to the restaurant. We looked like little kids walking into some giant, forbidden toy store. The inside of the restaurant was gorgeous. (I forgot to mention the restaurant is called Tuscany). The hostess seated us at a nice little table....

and gave us our menus.... WAIT, WHAT?!?!?

That's right people. You are getting a glimpse of the future. We opened our menus only to find that they lit up when opened! Stupidly, I tried to touch the screen, thinking it was a touch screen. Of course it was just a backlight behind paper, but still, it was awesome! Jordan's face was priceless. I tried not to laugh because our waiter had just come to our table. I tried as hard as I could to act normal. You know, talking to the waiter and pretending we weren't poor college kids who never do stuff like this. But as soon as the waiter walked away. Jordan and I couldn't help but giggle. This place was unreal - at least to us. By the way, we totally weren't underdressed. Half the people there were wearing the same thing, so that made us feel better. The weird part was that the only other people in our room were couples who were celebrating 40 or 50 years of marriage. 

It was a wonderful and memorable night (for many reasons). The food was to die for! I especially loved their cauliflower and bacon soup, AND their guava sorbet! Mmmmm... so good.

I don't know if we'll go back anytime soon, but if we ever have money, we'll most definitely go back.

We walked outside and handed the valet our ticket thing, and he literally started sprinting to the parking lot. I had no idea they were expected to get cars that quickly. AND the valet backed the car in for us (as pictured) so all we had to do was pull forward out of the parking lot. I'm glad we had some cash to tip the valet because he was so nice!

As soon as I got in the car, I started freaking out. I just kept saying "OH MY GOSH!!!" super loudly. I had kept my cool inside the restaurant, but I could not contain myself when we got in the car. I just couldn't believe the experience we just had! Man, it was awesome.

That night was also one of the nights you could supposedly see the Northern Lights because of the solar flare, so we drove north to check it out. We met up with Brittany and Forrest in Pleasant View, and then Forrest drove us up to Logan, and then to Bear Lake! We were a little bummed because we couldn't see any cool lights, but we had a lot of fun driving with Brittany and Forrest. We talked about movies, politics, and a bunch of other stuff. We spent the night at Jordan's parents' house. We slept very well after a long, but wonderful day.

My parents ordered a birthday cake for me, so we got to eat it the day after my birthday. Isn't it a gorgeous cake? It was a delicious as it looks.  :)

                             

It was a large cake so we had lots of friends over to help us eat it. We even gave pieces to our neighbors! It was also difficult because we were given another cake... meaning more of our friends and neighbors got cake!

Okay, this is another great thing that I got for my birthday. My grandmother and I worked really hard on making some pillows for my couches! I think they turned out great! We also made two other pillows for our other couch, but I thought one picture would suffice. The white pillow with the polka dots has a ton of green buttons sewn on it. I can proudly say I sewed every button on that pillow. I can also proudly say that I used a sewing machine to sew every button on. But still, I successfully used a sewing machine!