Happy Birthday to me!!

Well, today's my birthday. Not just any birthday, my 30th birthday. The big one. It used to seem so old, but now that I'm here, it's not so bad. I mean, I've been married for 9 years, have 2 kids, one of which is starting first grade. I look forward to the day when they are both in school all day and I can have some time to relax and get things done. If that means I have to get older, so be it. Actually Charlotte will be in pre-school 4 days a week starting on Wednesday. So I will have 3 1/2 hours to myself. It will be soooo nice! Thursday I'm taking myself to lunch and getting a pedicure :-).

Anyway, since my birthday usually falls on Labor Day weekend, I like to celebrate the whole weekend. The celebrations started on Thursday when Nathan and I got a babysitter and went to dinner at Applebee's and then saw "The Time Traveler's Wife". It was an ok movie. I read the book recently and so it was easier for me to understand what was going on. I think Nathan liked it more than I thought he was going to. It was just nice to get out with my hubby without the kids.

Yesterday, we finally got to Lake Michigan. The weather was nice enough, about 78 degrees. The water was pretty cold but we still had fun. We drove to Ludington which is a little over an hour drive.

I think it is just so pretty there. The girls just love playing in the sand.

Charlotte was not afraid of the water at all! She loved it!

We played for about an hour and then a funny thing happened. We had a grocery bag that had some snacks in it and some seagulls flew up and took some goldfish out of the bag!! Our stuff is behind Brooke in the picture above. At first, I tried to stop them, but then realized it was no use. There were probably about a dozen or so birds. The girls were hysterical and yelling and screaming over their goldfish. They run as fast as they can to our towels and started gathering everything up. They didn't want the seagulls to get the rest of their stuff and so they were ready to go. Nathan and I couldn't help from laughing. We tried calming them down, but it wasn't working. They were ready to go and ready to go NOW!! I wasn't about to let that ruin our day though. We decided to go and eat lunch because we hadn't eaten yet. We finally settled on a cute little corner cafe that was French and called "Le Serving Spoon". They had soups, sandwiches, and best of all...DESSERTS!! And boy was the food good, and the desserts even better! We were glad we just ran into this place. We may have to stop there again. After lunch, we stopped at the playground for a bit and played and then walked to the lighthouse. Then we played at the beach for a bit more and then headed home! It was a really fun day. I'm glad the weather cooperated.

Today, we had a cook-out at the Community Center with friends. We played WII and ate and hung out. It was just a relaxing day which was nice.

So far it's been a great birthday weekend. Tomorrow; who knows?