4.26.11 = 30!

I had a wonderful birthday celebration yesterday. Thank you to everyone who greeted me and sent birthday wishes my way 🙂

Normally, I would plan to travel around my birthday, but with the wedding and our trip to Mexico being a month away, we decided to stay local. It was low key, relaxing and just what I wanted.

My day started eating my breakfast right along these beautiful flowers. They were from the bridal shower this past weekend.

I had chocolate protein pancakes. It was extra chocolaty because I added a big spoonful of cocoa powder.

 

Chocolate pancakes topped with more chocolate = a very happy birthday girl.

Ate a few sweet treats from Hawaii that I got from the bridal shower.

and opened  these beautifully wrapped gifts from Chris.

Then it was time to pack-up our snacks and get ready for our morning adventures.

Our destination? ……..keep strolling down to find out.

    

We headed to L.A. to Griffith Park to do some hiking, a little sightseeing and plenty of snacking 🙂

 

The trails were challenging enough to give us a good a workout. Since we parked at the Griffith Observatory, we started our hike on top of the hill. We enjoyed all the scenery, admired the views and chatted while going downhill. But the second half of the hike was all uphill. Steep uphill.

  

We saw a snake (ewww), Chris said it was a king snake. It was long, black and slithered across the ground really fast. I hate snakes and got chills and almost ran out of there. But Chris used to have pet snakes so he wasn’t scared. He followed the snake to get close and take a picture but it was too fast.

This was our view half-way up the hike. Can you see the lady doing yoga? It must be really peaceful to do yoga surrounded by nature and birds humming.

Uphill for 30 minutes.

 

I found a bench tree to lean on while I catch my breath and admire the view of L.A.

A view of the hiking trails from the Griffith Observatory’s top deck.

After the hike, we ate our snacks and checked out Griffith Observatory. We both have not been there since elementary school. A lot of exhibits have changed and it is very modern now. They did a great job updating the place.

My weight in Jupiter = 330 lbs.

My weight in Pluto = 0 lbs.

 

Our snacks held us over for a few hours, then we were hungry again.

Since we were in the area already, I wanted to visit Babycakes bakery in downtown.

 

I tasted a few pastries and picked a few to bring home for the BBQ later in the evening.

Chris treated me for my birthday and said I can have whatever I want at Babycakes. Yippee! This bakery is 100% vegan and most of their products are agave-sweetened.

All the items I picked were good, especially the red velvet cupcake and coconut donut. But I probably won’t have it too often because it’s out of my budget. The cupcakes cost $4.50, expensive!. It was definitely a treat.

Vanilla macaroons and lemon coconut glazed donut.

Double fudge donut.

Later in the evening, we did a BBQ for dinner with family and I blew out my “30” candle!

 

My birthday cake was a red velvet cake with chocolate chips and cream cheese icing.

We also had fried banana dessert, a dish we call “Turon”.

 

I love how it’s crispy on the outside, with caramelized and soft banana on the inside. I ate mine with a side of coconut milk ice cream.

 

My nephew Jonah didn’t want to miss out on the action and didn’t want to leave my side, so we sang to him too. He is zero years old.

Happy Birthday Auntie 🙂

What a special day it was. Everything about it was just perfect and what I wanted. I got to spend a whole day relaxing with Chris and I celebrated with my family afterwards with lots of kisses from my nephew Jonah.