The Gould's: My 30th Birthday

October 20th I turned the big 30. It wasn't really bothering me in the way that it does "most" people. I wasn't upset about being old or my hair turning gray (since it's had gray in it since I was 18) but I just felt like this was something big, that I am entering in a new phase of life. To realize that I was forever leaving my 20's & becoming a "woman". Forgive me if this is a long post but I want to capture the weekend.

To celebrate this big birthday mom & dad came down on Thursday afternoon & on Friday afternoon they took the girls to the hotel they were staying at to give me a little "alone" time & then David & I were going to go out on a date later that night. My sister started texting me that afternoon & it went as follows:

Aimee: what are you guys doing tonight?

Me: I think we are going to Outback. Steak for 2 days is great!

Aimee: maybe I will see what mom is doing with the girls & maybe we can meet up with them

Me: that would be fun

Me: (a few hours later) did you get ahold of mom? are you guys going to meet up?

Aimee: yes we are going to meet them for dinner

So David tells me he will be home & we need to get out of here by 550 so we get out to eat. He comes to get me & we leave. We go over to Party City to "look around". As we were driving in the parking lot David says "we should go into Peter Piper & see if they have DDR". I then saw my brother in laws car & my dad's truck & told David "that is funny. I guess that they went to Peter Piper for dinner" & then explained that my sister said she might meet up with mom & dad. David said well we should go surprise them. We walked around Party City for a few minutes & then we went to Peter Piper. I walked in looking for my sister & the girls & the first person I spotted was my friend Carrie. My brain was trying to process what she was doing in Scottsdale Peter Piper when she lives in Mesa. After a few minutes I realized it was a table full of my friends! And then Zhara runs up to me & jumps on me while everyone says surprise. When I realized it was for me my face turned bright red. It was the greatest moment. There was this table full of people who came out to celebrate MY birthday. It was such a great feeling & I felt so loved that David would have went through all this planning to make my birthday such a fun time & that I got to celebrate it with my family & my great friends.
The girls at the hotel

David handing me my cane "tease me about my age & I will beat you with my cane" I carried it around all night. I even accidentally hit someone with it at the bowling alley

I love you David! Thank you so much!

My cake

Me & my girls...all 3 of them :)

Me & my sister Aimee...I think after 30 years we finally look like sisters

Somehow I don't have any pictures of what we did after Peter Piper. We some friends with no children & they researched where we could play Dance Dance Revolution (mine & David's favorite dating past time). So we went to a bowling alley & danced our hearts out. Then we bowled a game & holy cow I must be old because I remember it being like a couple bucks a game....now it's like 10 plus shoes!! Then we danced some more. Thanks Hale's for making us feel young :)

Dad told me he would take me out for steak for my birthday so we went to Texas Roadhouse for an early dinner. I LOVE that place & their honey butter!!! It was some good steak & it's so great to be in Arizona where we can all be together as a family. Afterwards we, of course, had to finish it off with some rock band!!
Alyssa was enjoying the rolls

Zhara said " Are we having rolls for dinner.....I better have 2"

So my sweet brother in law told them it was my bday & they brought over a saddle I climbed on while they told the whole restaurant I was turning 30 & I got a big Yeeeee Haaaaw!