The Best Birthday Ever

So I have been meaning to post about my amazing birthday and now I am finally getting around to it.

One night, as I lay next to John in bed, I hear my sister on the phone with John. I hear her ask "Is Alyssa around?" and I yell into the phone saying hello and wish my little nephew a happy birthday. Perhaps she didn't hear me (which seems proposterous) but I can only assume so as I then hear her explain her plans to surprise me on my birthday by coming down to Kentucky to visit! Well thank goodness I found out about this because my crazy mother and sister were planning on driving 10 hours to be here for my birthday and then turn around the next day and drive another 10 hours home. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Don't worry, I talked them out of it.

They came on my birthday and we did yoga and had coldstone ice cream cake. We went shopping in the mall where I finally found those buckeyball things (a bunch of magnetic balls that you can make in to shapes ... I know it sounds weird but look it up on youtube and you might be impressed) for my brother's birthday. We went to Berea, saw a few horse races and traveled to Cincinattie for the best concert ever!! We ate Indian and Korean, went for walks and watched Tangled (my new favorite movie).

Oh and I also found out that I got the new job that I have praying for ... neurosurgery in Lexington!!! I can't believe it. I'm super excited : )

Any way, it was absolutely wonderful to have them here. We did a ton of things together and it really made me miss home. I'm so glad that they made the trip! Thanks Mom, Chelsea and baby Chase.

Here are a few of the pictures from the best birthday ever!!!
(unfortunately my beautiful sister will not allow me to post any pictures of her so make sure you give her a hug and then give her a hard time about it because we all know she looks and is fabulous)

So this isn't exactly during the time when my family was here but I wanted to show how pretty the trees are here and how I live in such a nice apartment complex. We love it.

This is me apparently really really happy to have a coldstone ice cream birthday cake. Thank you John. (You see those cookie dough pieces on the top ... yeah ... I ate like three of those)

Baby Chase

Oh my gosh he is just so so cute and we couldn't stop talking about it the entire time.

An old race horse at Old Friends Farm, a local non-profit farm that keeps old race horses from being slaughtered or worse

Everybody loves Uncle John John

Keeneland horse track

The big race of the day

Chase trying on a fantastic hat in Berea. Be careful there buddy ... that's a 50 dollar handmade piece of fashion right there

Chase trying on another hat and playing with a very expensive handmade wooden toy.

Korean food eaten in the rain outside the concert venue. I have some pretty sweet pictures of my mom and sister attempting to use chopsticks in a cold down pour but that might be too funny to put on the internet.

Ok, she is just so cool

And this is what we did ... may we always remember