Birthday Celebration

So my family has always made birthday's a very big deal, and I was curious to see if Ben was up for the task. He made my birthday so wonderful and full of many surprises. I am so grateful for all the effort he put into making me feel so special.

I woke up like normal and when I got out of the shower the entire apartment was decorated with balloons and streamers.

He got me my usual birthday breakfast, donuts and Blueberry Morning Cereal.We went to dinner at my favorite restaurant Cafe Sabor and I got a virgin margarita to celebrate me turning of age :)After dinner we went back to the apartment to get ready to go roller skating/blading and Julia and Brad were there! They all surprised me and I had no idea they would be there. Here is cute little Kaylee (our neice) trying out roller skating for her first time!Here is Ben and I helping out our other neice Anika to roller skate for her first time as well. All of our feet were hurting after two hours on the skating rink, for some reason I remember roller blading being much easier and less "hurty" :)After roller skating we all went to Chili's to get Molten Lava Cake!

Ben surprised me and got me a new ipod for my birthday, woo hoo!
Thanks Ben! My new capris Ben got me.

Dallas - EHDI Conference

So this may seem like a boring thing to blog about but... this last week I went to Dallas to help put on the Early Hearing Detection Intervention Conference. I have been doing conference planning for almost 3 years now and this has been one of the "neatest" ones I have been a part of.

In this picture below is the group in their plenary session, you will see two large screens which is displaying live captioning, and if you look close enough you will see two ASL interpreters. Each breakout room in the conference was also equipped with this...which I think, and everyone else a part of the conference thinks is so awesome!

I got to meet many people all across the world that come together for somewhat of a common cause...there is a bit of a contraversy among participants concerning cochlear implants, ASL, and hearing aides...which I never knew existed.

I was able to learn a little bit of ASL so I could somewhat communicate with the deaf participants, it was a great experience all around!

I feel so blessed to have the job I have. I get to meet so many different people that come together for a variety of causes. Anything from Gifted Children & Hearing Detection to Saving Aspen Trees & and Researching the Spring Runoff.

Below is the Exhibit Hall for the EHDI Conference...There were a lot of people!This is me and a co-worker in the hotel's showroom, it was such a cool looking room, you almost felt like you were in Las Vegas. This is where the cowboy poetry was held...one of the night activities. Not only was the conference a lot of fun, but the weather was very nice! This is me with some of our group enjoying the warm weather.

Picture Tag

RULES:
1. Go to my documents/pictures
2. Go to the 6th folder
3. Go to the 6th picture
4. Blog about it
5. Tag 6 people to do the same

This picture was taken on my mom's birthday outside on my parent's patio. I am not sure what year it was taken but I am guessing around 3 years ago (probably August 14, 2006).

Whenever I look at this pictue my eyes are drawn to Julia (the girl in the purple shirt looking at the camera), I think she looks beautiful!

TAG....

Julia

Jen

Annie

Sara

Kimmy

Kaly