I had a birthday. And wrote a really long, sentimental post about it.

When you're a Jazz fan and a playoff game falls on the eve of your birthday, and the age you are turning coincides with the jersey number of your favorite player, then you just have to throw a party. And so it was that we decided to round up the Jazz game crew last weekend for a Paul Millsap-themed birthday extravaganza.

We payed tribute to Paul through sugary treats:

And some ghetto decorations:



The party would have been perfect had the Jazz not lost in a true heartbreaker of a game and left us all slightly depressed. Such is life I suppose. I used my disappointment to convince my friends to sit in formation on the couch for a group photo. I believe my exact words were "if the Jazz can't pull off a win I'm at least getting a good picture out of this night, dammit."
So here we all are (except Logan):
Pretty much everyone in this photo was a regular fixture in our basement during the playoff games. It was good times- Smeegs routinely showing up in a wifebeater and slippers toting a big gulp, Scott doing his Jerry Sloane impression and introducing us all to the deliciousness of cowboy grub cookies, Sara not even pretending to care about the game while the rest of us freaked out and screamed at the TV. I'm going to miss those weekends.

It's crazy to realize that we've been watching Jazz games with most of these peeps for the better part of three years. In fact, one of the first times I met Mike was at a playoff party at Scott's house. If memory serves I called one of the refs a douchebag and Mike gave me a strange look. At the time I thought he was quietly judging me for my choice of language, but come to find out he actually agreed with that analysis and it might have had something to do with him asking me out a week later. And I think my first encounter with the Morrisons was when Mike and I were newly married and ended up watching a Jazz game in their apartment with mutual friends. I was starving and Megan offered me some of her Cafe Rio, which made me love her instantly. Two and a half years later, they are some of our closest friends. Funny how cheering together for a sports team can do that.

Anyways... I shared my actual birthday with all the mothers of the world, so Sunday was spent going to church, then heading to the Cassitys for a delicious salmon dinner and spending the remainder of the night with the members of my family who weren't out of town (Dad was in Seattle on business, the Leppards ditched us for Lake Powell). In an antidote to the sports-filled mania of the night before, we spent the evening in a decidedly sophisticated manner: eating chocolate-covered strawberries and an assortment of cheese and crackers on the patio, then using the combined clout of Mother's Day and my birthday to convince the boys to watch a black and white Audrey Hepburn movie (Roman Holiday and they actually liked it). It was fabulous.

Thank you to all the family and friends that made my birthday weekend memorable. I think 24 is going to be a great year.