It Happened

My friend, Kristy, posted her favorite photos from her 2010 edition of the photo-of-the-day challenge. Stealing a page from her play book (which isn’t the first, at it won’t be the last, time I’ve done it), I’ve decided to post my favorite photos from my 2010 project. Two things surprised me about last year’s photos. I really liked a lot more than I thought I would. I was expecting to only have 5-6 favorites, but I had to trim a few off of this list because I felt it was getting too long. Second, there are a lot more vertical shots than I expected. I really don’t feel like I take that many vertical shots, but apparently when I do, they stick out among my favorites.

Jenny wrote more about it here, but I just wanted to post a couple of photos from Arlington Cemetery. Every year, a company from Maine donates thousands of wreaths to be placed on graves at Arlington Cemetery for a project called Wreaths Across America. Because the cemetery is so massive, they can’t cover every grave every year, but they rotate through the various sections so that they all have a turn. As you can see, it’s very impressive.

Yesterday was my thirtieth birthday. As my birthday is so close to Christmas, we have traditionally received Christmas cards that usually include a “PS: Happy Birthday, Chance!” I have more or less gotten used to it. It irritated me for the longest time, but I’ve grown apathetic. We’ll call it old age. Anyway, as Jenny has only had to deal with it for eight years, it still upsets her. She works really, really hard to make sure my birthday is just that, my birthday and not some afterthought.

As a case study, we simply need to look to yesterday.

I woke up at 7:15 to get ready for work. While I was in the shower, Jenny stole my towel and threw it in the dryer so I’d have a warm towel when I got out of the shower. Honestly, who doesn’t love a warm towel? After I got dressed, she had prepared breakfast: cinnamon rolls! She also gave me my first gift of the day: a new shirt and tie. Since I turned thirty, she decided to give me three presents, one for each decade of life. I left and had a smooth ride to work. At around 11:25, Jenny showed up at the office to take me out to lunch. We had reservations at a nice restaurant, so we wanted to make sure we’d have empty stomachs; hence the early lunch. On the way to We The Pizza, Jenny gave me my second gift: a new camera strap! The strap that came with my camera was fine, but I felt it was a little short. This one is significantly longer and has quick-release clips. This will provide for less shaking when it sits on a tripod. After lunch, Jenny served up sopapilla cheesecake. It was a huge hit at the office!

I returned to my desk to finish out the day. At 6:15, we left the office to head to Fogo de Chão, a Brazilian churrascaria. We had been to Tucano’s and Rodizio’s in Utah, but we had never been to FDC. It’s significantly more expensive, but very tasty. The service was fantastic and the food was great. My only complaint was the fact that they didn’t have grilled pineapple. I had been looking forward to that almost more than the endless parade of meat. A colleague, along with her husband, joined us. It was truly great company for a fantastic meal.

After dinner, we headed home so we could have dessert: a homemade Boston Creme Pie, from scratch! A couple of neighbors joined us. The pie was delicious, and again, the company was the best. Jenny followed it up for the best gift of the night: a new tripod! When I bought the D90, I bought a tripod without doing any research. I was just so excited for a new camera that I took the first thing I saw. Turns out, that tripod was really made for point-and-shoot cameras, not SLRs with heavy lenses. It handled the D90 fine as long as I didn’t have my 70-300mm on it. However, more than once, the tripod head fell forward when the 70-300 was on it, almost snapping off once. I had several other complaints about it, and being the observant wife she is, Jenny knew what to look for. I’ll avoid writing more details, but it rocks.

So thanks to Jenny for quite possibly the best birthday I’ve ever had! She went above and beyond and made it a fantastic day! If I had known it was going to be that good, I may have even taken the day off of work.

Thanks to my wonderful friends who shared the day with us. You really added to it and made it special. And to my friends and family who weren’t around, thanks for the well wishes on Facebook and all the texts.