Dirty Thirty

Monday, February 18th was my birthday. My 30th birthday to be exact. Ug. Not going to lie, I was dreading this birthday. I remember my mom turning 30 and I thought she was so OLD at that point. (I was 7). My original plan was  to do something that involved a lot of adult beverages. Well, Baby Ripke put a damper on that. (Remind me to thank him or her later.) Instead, my mom and I went to Des Moines for a lot of shopping. We should have taken some pictures, but obviously, that slipped my mind. We hit up a lot of stores and each of us bought some furniture for each of the houses we're building. (Yes, my parents are building as well.) Then we spent the remainder of the trip looking for maternity clothes for my expanding waist line. Luckily, we hit the jackpot at Old Navy and I may be breaking out my new maternity skinny jeans this weekend. :)

We ended our Saturday with a trip to PF Changs and dinner with one of my good friends, T. (Again, should have taken pictures). After dinner, all three of us saw the movie Safe Haven - a must see! Sunday morning we headed up to Ankeny to meet up with my aunt, cousins and their families. It was great to see everyone and being around the little kids got me even more excited for Baby R!

Monday was my actual birthday and also a work day. Ironically enough, my counterpart and office mate also has the same birthday as me, so it was fun celebrating together. We grabbed lunch with another friend and indulged in some cupcakes. Monday evening we headed over to my parent's for dinner and some dutch apple pie. (yum!) 

29, like the year 2012, was a challenging year. There were a lot of positive things that happened, but forever in my mind, my 29th year will be over shadowed by fertility treatments and heartbreak. However, at the same time, it was also the year we found out that Baby R was on the way, and for that, I will forever look at my 29th year and smile. 

The dirty thirty has a lot of exciting things coming up and I'm excited to get started. I can't believe next year at this time we'll have a six month old!