27 Years!

This weekend/Monday we celebrated my 27th birthday!

On Sunday we went up to my bro and sis-in-laws house for cake and ice cream.  Kari made a super yummy cake for me.  We celebrated and played games.  My mother-in-law and sis-in-law stopped by for a bit, which was fun.  Then we stopped by Connor's family's house before heading home.

The awesome cake and card that Kari made me. 

At midnight I made Connor give me my present.  (I'm not a very patient person when it comes to presents.)  I already knew what I was getting, and I was very excited.  I got a Nook!  I had considered getting a Kindle, and almost did, but then when I was comparing the 2 I found out that on Nooks you can borrow library books, which I think is a huge plus because I don't want to have to buy every single book I read.  So that was the deciding factor.

Anyway, a little after midnight Connor gave me my present.  My Nook!  And then I realized that it had to be fully charged before I could even turn it on.  Which takes about 3 hours.  (Remember what I said about being patient?)  So I stayed up until 3am so I could play with my Nook before I went to bed.  (I know, I'm crazy.)  Regardless, I am very excited.  I bought my first book, "The Help," which I am already enjoying thoroughly.  

On Monday I did basically nothing all day long, which is exactly what I wanted to do.  And then Monday night we went out to eat.  I couldn't decide where I wanted to go.  I considered The Melting Pot but then I looked at their prices online.  Then we were thinking of going to The Garden Cafe at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  Then Eric called me and sang the awesomest birthday song ever, and then gave me the idea of going to Benihana.  So we went there and it was delicious.  It's a Japanese Steakhouse where they cook the food in front of you.  I had been to one similar once before, but Connor had never been there and we both really enjoyed it.

Before the restaurant.

Funny story of the night - I accidentally drank the water of the little 13 year-old girl sitting next to me.  Without thinking, I grabbed the glass of water, took a sip, and then while I was putting it down I realized what I had down and she started to look over at me, also realizing what I had done.  I said "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I just drank your water!"  And then I found a server and asked her to bring the girl a new glass.  It was pretty funny.  I had to make a conscious effort for the rest of the night to not drink her water.

Anyway, since it was my birthday they gave me a free dessert, and took our picture.  It was also another person at our table's birthday.

Then, since we didn't have our dessert fix fulfilled, we went to Cold Stone and got some ice cream from there.  I got my fav, All Lovin' No Oven.  Yum!

It was a really great day.

Missing in America Project

Today was the funeral for the Missing in America Project.  It was a really cool experience.  The Missing In America Project goes around to mortuaries across the nation and searches for Veterans whose remains have gone unclaimed.  Deseret Mortuary, which is a part of Memorial Mortuaries (where Connor works), had unclaimed cremains of 16 veterans.  Today they had a service and military honors.

In front of Deseret Mortuary before we left.  This is a small fraction of the amount of motorcycles that accompanied us.

I got to go to the service today with Connor.  It was held at Utah Veterans Memorial Park.  We had a police escort on motorcycles, and about 70 motorcyclists who accompanied us in the hearse.  It was really cool.  We never had to stop at red lights because the police escort would stop traffic, and we drove all the way from Salt Lake to the cemetery in Bluffdale.

You can see in the reflection all the lights from the motorcycles that were following us.

The service was very nice. Connor was presented with a flag in honor of one of the unclaimed veterans.  They asked him to keep it at Deseret Mortuary.

Connor accepting the flag.

Almost all of the news stations were there:

ABC 4

Fox 13

KSL (This one has a good photo of Connor)

Channel 2 was there too, but I can't find the article online.

Salt Lake Tribune (I'm in the background in a couple of the photos)

Deseret News

Connor's Famous!

Connor was quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune.  The article should be in tomorrow's paper, but it's online now.  He is working on a funeral for 15 Veterans, whose cremains have gone unclaimed.

You can read the article here.

Update

This is a little past due.  Connor got his stitches out.  We went the following week (so Aug 1st) to get them out.  We went back to the ER, which was significantly busier this time than the last.  Much more time was spent in the waiting room.  Probably only about 20 minutes, but last time we didn't have to wait at all.

Waiting...

Connor was less than thrilled that he had to wear another hospital wrist band.  We went in to see the nurse and they asked how long the stitches had been in for.  We said 1 week, and they said "Only 1 week?"  Then they asked who told us to come back in 1 week?  "Uh, the doctor did" I said.  Then they had to go find another doctor and have him look at Connor's leg to make sure the stitches could come out.  It took him less than 5 seconds to determine they were ready.

Unfortunately, I missed the interesting part of the stitches coming out.  They made me go answer a bunch of insurance questions.  By the time I was done, Connor was finished too.  He said that it hurt a little, and told me that I had mislead him because when I had stitches in my hip and they took them out it didn't hurt at all.  I guess my hip has a lot more cushion than his thigh, though.  :)

Connor's car isn't fixed yet.  Hopefully by the end of the week.  They had to order an entirely new roof, which Honda would only ship by land, so that's why it's taking so long.

Anyway, all is well.  Almost everything is fixed.  Let's hope nothing else breaks for awhile.