Twenty nine...

I'm glad that my husband married me. Even though my birthday is during the muzzle loader deer hunt every single year. It's his favorite hunt you know, always has been. Thankfully we've avoided this predicament for the past 7 years that we've lived out of Utah. This year though... it was back.

I honestly don't care if he hunts on my birthday anymore. We can always celebrate later right? I would rather him go and have a good time with his friends then worry about hunting on my birthday. Well, I guess there was this situation a while ago... on my 21st birthday... where I was left by myself at a cabin for the whole entire day without any phone service or sight of another human being until late into the evening. Yep, I really did spend my 21st birthday all by my lonesome, and was a little sad about that. I'm over it... really I am! But my husband has taken a personal vow to never have that happen again, and to no longer hunt on my birthday.

My boy and I decided to drive out to where he was hunting this year and camp over on Friday night. Such a good decision! I didn't want to spend the whole week with a bunch of smelly hunters {no offense}, but one night was not bad at all.

This was my view when I woke up Saturday morning...

And I just knew it was going to be a beautiful day.

 

Twenty nine this year... my golden birthday. I don't know why but I've been looking forward to 29 for a long time. Still in my twenties, but hopefully a little wiser than I was in my early twenties.

 

The boy needed to use the potty, which was a few miles away. We normally would not drive to the potty while out camping in the woods but I felt like going on an early morning drive to see this beautiful place we were in.

 

Best decision of the day.

 

You see, mother nature had a {few} wonderful birthday presents for me on this drive. I left camp, turned a few corners, and found myself in the most beautiful golden aspen forest. 

For miles, and miles, and MILES all you could see were golden aspen trees! I drove slowly along the dirt road trying to soak in as much of the sun reflecting off these golden beauties as I could... it was magical to me.

It was one of the most amazing drives of my life. I know that it's the time of year for leaves to change, and I was up in the mountains, but it almost felt like someone had painted all the trees gold the night before just for me on my golden birthday. I shed a few tears at the beauty I was beholding and considered it a gift.

The next gift that was on my drive... sheep. Lots of sheep. I love seeing wildlife outside and Utah has a lot of it. But seeing hundreds of sheep brings me back to my college days when I went to Snow College. There were many mornings I would be walking to school and the roads in Ephraim would be covered in sheep. This city girl {who wishes she was a country girl} loved it when the farmers would do that.

So we slowed down even more and watched the sheep.

I took the most awesome movie of the hundreds of sheep surrounding our car... but I can't for the life of me get it to load. So sorry, that you have to miss out on that one ;). It was pretty amazing to see all these sheep out there.

Even with all my tree gazing and sheep watching going on, we still made it to the loo in time. I love that my birthday started out with something so simple yet special. It's the small and simple things that sometimes bring us the most joy. When we got back to camp we packed everything up and headed home. My cute husband was true to his word and did not hunt on my birthday. He made me feel very special. Mother nature made me feel special. My wonderful friends and family members made me feel special. It was a great day. I'm lucky to be so loved and have such great people in my life.