Ben's 30th Birthday!

This guy turned 30 on February 8th, 2013! 

His breakfast of choice was none other than waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.

My favorite boys bright and early in the morning!

Ben was scheduled to go to school and have lunch with a visiting professor on his birthday.  It ended up getting cancelled because of Winter Storm Nemo.  Therefore, Ben got to work from home on his birthday! 

 

We took advantage of this and went out to a nice, last minute, birthday lunch.  Our friend Emily was willing to watch William so we could enjoy lunch with just the two of us.

I got the idea to make a piñata for Ben's birthday from my friend Maren.

 She executed hers much better than I, but given that I started it 36 hours before the big day, I was just happy to have a finished product!

 

Thanks to some Pampers boxes, scissors, a lot of tape, and crepe paper I made it happen... fast!

Note to self: Plan ahead next time :)

Instead of going out for a birthday dinner as planned, we stayed home on that snowy night and I made another one of Ben's favorites: chicken curry.

And what would a birthday be without your favorite cake: angel food cake with more strawberries and whipped cream!

 The next day we continued to celebrate the big 3-0 with bowling and cookie sandwiches with some friends.

 The whole gang

 At Cornell they have the "old-fashioned" bowling alleys where you keep your own score.  Ben is actually quite fond of keeping track of the scores.

 The plan was to break open the piñata at Ben's party.  

Note to self: piñatas are not the best in the winter

  

No one wanted to go pick up candy in the snow outside...

  so we found a hallway and Ben went at it with the bat.   

 We ended up with 5 pounds of candy at our house for the rest of the month!

Fast forward one week and we flew home to Arizona for my brother's wedding! 

It just so happened to be the day after Valentine's Day, so we got to celebrate it with family in warm AZ.

I had been working on a little something for Ben, with the help of my friend Kristen.  

It's a map memory journal of all the different locations that are special to us.

Some of the wedding party at dinner before the big day. 

I didn't do a very good job of documenting the wedding day, but here are just a few pics.  

Isn't my new sister-in-law beautiful! 

While in Arizona, William got to meet his great grandparents, my Papa & Nana.

It was so fun being outside without coats and hats on.  

We went to the park and the boys got to ride the train together.

Cute cousins!

 

  And now we're back in Ithaca, waiting for spring to arrive!

We are getting really good at indoor activities, like watching dad's basketball games.