Hoppy Easter!

Hi all,
I hope everyone is having a great Easter weekend! Ours has been great. Yesterday was my birthday! Woohoooooo! The big 3 - 0! It doesn't really feel any different than the big 2 - 9, but whatever. It is weird thinking I'm in my 30s now. I remember when some of y'all hit 30. I thought you were so old. It doesn't seem so old anymore. Of course, maybe it's because YOU are SOOOOO much older than that! Who knows?

My birthday was great. Aspen and I went for a hike in the morning in this area called Cuyamaca where we sought out the Stonewall Gold Mine. The area has some incredible views despite the obvious devastation of a 2003 wildfire. While it was fun getting out into the wilderness and hearing Aspen talk to wild animals (Did any of you know she is fluent in squirrel? Such an amazing girl!), it was a little disappointing that we weren't able to climb around a spooky gold mine. I guess I knew that that wasn't very likely anyway, but there's always a chance!

For lunch we went to the historic town of Julian. Julian boomed in the late 1800's as a result of the gold rush, but is best known today for it apple orchards. Numerous signs in town offer Julian's "famous apple pie and cider" to tourists. And by tourists, I mean bikers. I think there were probably three motorcycles for every car parked along the town's few streets. We enjoyed perusing the town's eclectic shops like Pistols and Petticoats and The Candy Basket. The Candy Basket sucked me right back into my childhood with 18 inch tall pixie sticks, fun dip, and gummy everything. I wanted to get an exotic candy from the orient (Virginia, I think) called M & Ms, but Aspen told me that I couldn't go to a real candy store and leave with M & Ms. So instead, in the true spirit of Easter, we bought homemade fudge, haystacks, chocolate-dipped pretzels and salt water taffy.

Afterwards, we had "tea" at this little place called Julien Tea and Cottage Arts. It was this little house full of tea and tea-related accessories. I felt like if I turned around too quickly I would break countless little cups and saucers. We had a delicious lunch of finger sandwinches, fruit, cheese, scones and homemade bread pudding. And, very much to my surprise, the staff came out at one point with a little cake singing happy birthday! At first I started looking around to see who's birthday it was, until I saw them headed straight for me and realized, "Oh, it's my birthday!" It was a nice surprise and a fun experience. Though, I'll say this about having tea, I don't think we could have dirtied more dishes if we had had a 5 course meal.

We finished the day with another treat from my childhood - Taco Bell! It was, after all, MY birthday. Anyway, happy Easter and I hope everyone is doing well!

Murry