I'm 36

 I am an organism living on a hunk of rock which spins 1070 miles per hour and orbits a large star. Two weeks ago I completed my 36th orbit! Here's what I did to celebrate:

1. My new friend Amy invited me to Panera for lunch. She secretly invited a bunch of her favorite people to introduce me to, many of whom have children in the Spanish Immersion program where my kids go. It was so kind. People I had never met brought me presents and hugs and woke their babies up from naps so they could be there for me. It was a short, casual lunch which I will never forget.

2. Erik's parents invited us all over for a celebration. Christiaan and Noelle arranged a babysitter for all the little ones, and the adults + Lindsay and Lucy went out to dinner at Thai Bite (my FAVORITE), and then came back to their house for dark chocolate ganache cake and presents. Elayne had set a darling table for the grandchildren with hearts cut out of apples; Ed had built my birthday throne with a book theme, my kids and niece drew pictures and wrote letters to me, and there were lovely thoughtful presents.

Amy on the birthday throne surrounded by family

3. On Valentine's Day we drove up to Los Altos to celebrate my birthday in my soul's home with our people. Our first morning there I told Erik I was heading over to my friend Wendy's house - she's a painter and I was taking over some fabric samples to see if she wanted to get started doing a painting for our new house. At the last minute Erik said he wanted to come along too. We walked in the door of that dear, familiar house to see Wendy and cute little Jayne, and of course hugged and chatted, and then as I looked over at a wall of their family room I noticed a different painting where her Canada landscape was supposed to be. I knew immediately it was the Seville cathedral, but my brain spun its wheels for a minute, trying to think why I had never known that Wendy loved Seville. What??? I looked at her, totally perplexed. "Where is that?" I asked. "Oh, it's just kind of.. somewhere in Europe," she replied. Me, totally confused. "But that's - that looks like - that's the Seville cathedral." Then from Erik, "Happy Birthday."

Tears and tears and tears.

4. I didn't get to go to Bing with my kids on my birthday as I had wanted, but I did get to hike around the Palo Alto hills taking pictures. I love so many places on this big rock spinning in space, but the place I want to be buried is by the San Francisco Bay. I want the elements of my body to nourish a tree like this, or a giant redwood. 

5. I spent a couple of days driving around streets without having to look at a map, pulling up into familiar driveways of my kids' friends' houses and watching their friends run out of houses or across fields with their arms outstretched to tackle them. I worked hard to frame the experience as  sweet instead of sad - I took my cues from my children, who are so good at living in the moment without worry. Instead of thinking how poignant it was that we used to live there but don't any more, or worrying about how long it would be before we saw them again, they were simply happy to be with them, right then. And so I was too. We met a large group of church friends at our beloved Cuesta park, and spent time one-on-one and with smaller groups in back-to-back appointments.

I miss those wise, majestic redwoods so much. And every one of those people.

6. Dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and kids at our old favorite: Mongolian BBQ. Lucy is a shameless Drew-hog. No one else even gets to look at him when she's around. :)

I tried to stay positive, but let's be honest: seeing these guys made me cry a lot. Sophie and Tyler walked around with their arms around each other, and as we walked along Castro Street I remembered the first day Scott and Rachel pulled up into Mountain View and met us at Shiva's for Indian food on their very first day in California when Ty was an infant in a baby carrier. We feel so lucky to have lived by them for those years. Here we are at our favorite yogurt place, Yoogl. Nothing compares with their Oatmeal Cookie gelato.

Our trip up North also included the Symphony in San Francisco, running in Rancho San Antonio, amazing and heart-balming birthday dinner, attending our old ward, and visiting our friends in East Bay. It was a whirlwind and actually kind of exhausting now that I'm reviewing it all... but so important for all of us.

As Lucy stated it, "now I feel at home in Northern AND Southern California." And surprisingly, and to our relief, by the end we were all ready to drive back South and cozy back up into our house together as a family. This was HUGE for us - we returned to San Clemente feeling almost like it was home.

Happy Birthday to me.