I'm 21 now!

Today is my birthday, and I've been such a lucky girl to celebrate it all weekend long! I've had so much fun and have pictures to prove it, and so I'll give you all the play-by-play:

Thursday night a friend set me up on a blind date to see the Alicia Keys concert in Salt Lake. It was an unexpected surprise! I didn't know I was going until the day-of. It was fun though, and the guy was really nice, and we had a great time. Alicia Keys is seriously super talented.. I do wonder, do you think 'Keys' is a stage name? It just seems so cliche that she is such a piano whiz and has the name 'Keys'. Who knows though, right? It was a fantastic concert!

Friday I had the day off of work, which was SO nice. The company I work for is so generous with paid time off. In addition to the amazing amount of PTO we get a year, you get your birthday off paid! (or any day you choose to have off, since I picked Friday instead of today.)
I got to have lunch with my dear friend Morgan, who recently got married. I got to check out their cute newly wed apartment, and catching up with her since the wedding was SO fun.

Friday afternoon, my friend Dan, his brother Ryan, and their friend Luke took me to the Little Sahara Sand Dunes for a weekend of four-wheeling! It was a blast! We camped there Friday night, and then spent all day Saturday four-wheeling. Here a few pictures of our adventures!

Luke, Ryan, Dan, and our redneck rig:

The boys taught me how to use a little scout water to get a good fire going:

Some fun off of the four-wheelers as well!! Here we are doing some dune jumping:

Utah really IS a desert.. I mean seriously, this looks like a different continent!

One of Dan's totally awesome four-wheelers.
This is where I spent most of my time (only seated, of course.)
You can't turn 21 without having a little fun, right?

Haha... Just kidding. It's only Huckleberry Soda :)

On the way home, even though we were dead tired, we stopped off at the most redneck place for dinner to top off our redneck weekend. There is a place called "Porters" on main street in Lehi that is about as redneck as you can get. It is a restaurant dedicated completely to Orrin Porter Rockwell. It's really interesting... you go inside and there is some kind of player piano music rambling in the background, and there are saws, mallets, whips, spurs, guns, and really old western portraits all over the walls. The stools at the bar were made from old tractor seats, and in the back of the place is a real log cabin, (which coincidentally belonged to Luke's great great grandfather.) The food was pretty good (really heavy, but good).. and the boys topped it off with my first 'beer' as a legal drinker... Haha. It's just pretend though, it was just Huckleberry soda. No worries!

Sunday we celebrated as a family and had Grandma Wadley over for dinner. We opened gifts and had cake and ice cream, and it was so fun! I FINALLY got to open my birthday present from Nathan, which I had gotten in the mail last Wednesday. I had been trying to save it for my birthday, but decided to open it with my family's gifts. Inside was lots and lots and lots of gorgeous traditional samoan fabric to make a traditional female Samoan costume out of! (pictures to come!) I am very excited to have something to work on now until he gets home in 34 days! He also had a couple of letters inside, as well as some new pictures. I scanned them in so you can see too. Doesn't he look handsome?! Of course I think so :)
In the last one, he is wearing the shirt I sent him for his birthday! It says "It's Uke and Me, Baby" on it... heh heh :)

Tonight mom, dad, Clint, and I went out to my favorite Thai place for dinner. The food was amazing as always. If you are into Thai food, I highly recommend this place. It is called "Spicey Thai", and is located on North University Avenue in Provo, right next to Magelby's Fresh. It's to die for!

Later tonight I went over to the Ives' house to show Nathan's parents the gift he had sent me. When I got there they surprised me with a bouquet of balloons and flowers and chocolate. They are so incredibly thoughtful! I just love them :)

So as you can see, it has been a fantastic marathon birthday weekend!! Thank you everybody for making it such a great one! I love you all!