My 32nd birthday turned out to be a pretty good one. It started early in the morning when I was woken by my phone, which was a text message from my mommy. She’s always the first one to call and this year it was at 6:45 am. I decided to give my brother a wake-up call too. I called him at about 8:00 am PST, which happens to be 5 am in Hawaii…muhahaha. I actually beat my mom this year.

Throughout the day I was getting phone calls, text messages, emails, and even a few Facebook messages from friends and family. I even got a call from my co-workers from Irvine. That was pretty cool. At work, everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and we had brownie sundaes. I also got off work early to help Jes with the dinner he was preparing. Friends came over in the evening for Jes’ standing rib roast with all the fixin’s. He actually got the timing almost perfect and we were seated and eating by 8:30 – unlike our reverse dinner with the cousins last year.

There was also the pleasant surprise of ice cream cake and presents. At 32, I don’t expect presents anymore and it was pretty fun opening gifts that friends had picked out. I got a San Francisco version of a moleskine and chocolates (made to eat with certain red wines) from the Sokol-Juns and a Crumpler bag from the Masayas. Thanks, guys!!

This year was weird not celebrating my birthday with the brother and the rest of my family but having friends around makes up for it. On top of that, it’s not every year that you get to celebrate your birthday on a Friday night. I love Friday nights and this was perfect. Thanks for the awesome dinner, Jes. I wonder if I can Yelp my husband…

Here are photos from the dinner.