Jaime's Birthday Surprise

As I mentioned before, Jaime's birthday was December 1st, the same day we won our football championship. That's a pretty good birthday present, don't you think? We had some cake, and she and I did some fun things that afternoon. She was very appreciative of the great birthday we'd given her. Ha. She didn't even know what was coming.

Her birthday was a Thursday, so we told her that we had some special birthday plans for Friday night with just our roommates and Angela, who is pretty much a roommate anyway. Now, before I continue, let me just say that there are several other people that I wish could have participated in this activity with us. We were limited to car space, though, so they weren't able to come. But I still love them.

About a week before her birthday, though, they (Angela, Whitney, and Jaime) found out that they had an intramural basketball game Friday night. Grr... I am not very understanding or patient when it comes to conflicts with the amazing birthday surprises that I plan. We had to adjust our plan so we couldn't do the birthday surprise until Saturday. We told Jaime to be ready at noon, which in the end was a very smart move because it totally threw her off.

Early Saturday morning, though, the other four of us packed the car then woke her up at 6:30 in the morning and told her she had five minutes to brush her teeth, put a bra on, put her shoes on, and get in the car. We started driving south on the freeway and it wasn't until we got to Nephi, I think, (which is about an hour south of us) that she figured out we were going to Las Vegas! She said she'd had some other ideas but they were all ideas that could be done after noon. Haha. Sucker.

Backing up for a minute, the night before, I started packing her bag while she was still at work. I tried to take things that she wouldn't notice were missing so when I took the scarf she'd told me she wanted to wear for our birthday activity, I was relieved that it was pretty much buried under other scarves anyway. She wouldn't even notice it. Wrong. That night as she was getting ready for bed, for some reason she decided to get her clothes together for the next day. Which she never does. She noticed the scarf was missing and freaked out. I tried my best to not talk to her because I knew she'd know I took it. I'm not very good at denying things if she accuses me of them. Finally I told her just to drop it. She realized I had it (still had no idea why) and finally let it go. So the next morning, we're driving around and we tried to get her to guess where we were going. The first thing she said? "I can't, because someone stole my scarf!" Mental note: if you steal her scarf, Jaime will never forgive you.

If you'll remember, about four months ago a group of friends went down to California. On the drive back, as we were driving through Vegas I had the idea to buy tickets to a Cirque du Soleil show for Jaime's birthday. We saw our first Cirque show in February, Viva Elvis, and we all LOVED it, so I knew she would be super excited and I was pretty sure I could get the other girls onboard with me. That was four months ago. It took me about a month to remember to talk to the other girls when Jaime wasn't in the room. We bought our tickets in October and have been sitting on this secret ever since. My favorite holiday all year is my birthday, but I think my second favorite holiday might be Jaime's birthday, just because I love trying to think of a super cool surprise for her. She usually tries to figure it out, and she often does. Not this year. She had no idea, which made it even more fun!



We stayed at Aubrey's grandpa's house in Mesquite, Nevada, which is about an hour outside of Vegas. We got there early enough to to take a nap, since most of us had been up since about 6 that morning. We then got ready and headed down to Vegas.

We ate at the Cheesecake Factory, which is becoming a Vegas tradition.

This time we saw The Beatles: Love at the Mirage hotel. Jaime's dad is a huge Beatles fan so she grew up listening to them. The show, as expected, was amazing. I was in awe at what the human mind can create. The show is so interesting visually with the sets, costumes, routines, tricks, and special effects. It is incredible to me that before that could ever be created, someone had to first imagine it and then figure out how to build it. We humans are an impressive breed.

After the show we walked over to the Bellagio to see the dancing fountains, easily one of my favorite things in Vegas. On the way there we ran into this pretty tree. The lights were so cool! All of Vegas was decorated for Christmas, though I was a little surprised that it wasn't decorated more than it was. For a city that thrives on over-the-top, I thought the decorations were pretty typical. They were beautiful, just not the typical Vegas mind-blowing beautiful.

Happy birthday to my best friend!