thestoryofjory.com

My birthday was last week! Of course, I celebrated all week long with friends and family (as any self-respecting birthday girl should!).  I took a picture commemorating each birthday event throughout the week so I could share it with all my far away friends :)

Saturday, February 20 – OSU Men’s Basketball.   My in-laws picked us up before the game and we had a great lunch together at Louie’s followed by a close, exciting basketball game.  The Cowboys ended up beating the Baylor Bears, 82 to 75.  Then we all went back to the house so I could open my birthday present – a Scentsy and some moolah!

Tuesday, February 23 – Gaijin Sushi.  Traditionally, Dad doesn’t do birthday gifts, he does birthday dinners. So after work, Tanner & I drove to Norman to meet my dad for a birthday sushi dinner. The guy in the picture is Devin, and he works at Gaijin.  If you live in Norman, OK and like sushi, please go eat Devin’s sushi.  It’s amazing. Ask for the White roll and the Devil’s Advocate roll, and if you’re feeling adventurous, try the Psycha-D.

Thursday, Feb. 25 – Dinner with the Grandparent-In-Laws.  After enjoying a nice steak dinner, we went back to their house for drinks.  They gave me my birthday present (which was awesome), but the really, really awesome thing was that Grandpa Burson gave me his old film cameras.  He knew that I’m attempting to learn more about film photography, so he decided to give me his old cameras and lenses.  I already shot one roll of film on the Canon – we’ll just have to see how well it turns out!

Friday, Feb. 26 – My actual Birthday!  Tanner, Nick, Jackie & I went out to eat, then hit the local drinking establishments.   Thanks to Andrew & Sarah for joining us, and of course to the few nameless individuals who bought me a birthday shot ;)

Saturday, Feb. 27 – Over the river and through Noble – to Grandmother’s house I went! Jackie and I went to see Grandma & Papaw Carson.  That’s always a good thing because Grandma Carson can cook like no other.  We had a good visit with them, then went to meet my cousins at McNellie’s in Norman. And OSU beat Kansas at Gallagher-Iba Arena.  So it was a very good day!

Sunday, Feb. 28 – Best Birthday Surprise Ever! Tanner lead me to believe that he wasn’t really doing anything for me for my birthday.  Needless to say, I was a little annoyed by that thought.  He told me we were going to go ice skating & then out to eat.  So I was really surprised when we left the ice center for the Tulsa Oiler’s hockey game and they had a birthday cake for me!  Our friends Clint & Molly also met us there & we went to Joe Momma’s Pizza downtown after the game.  Funny story about the cake – Tanner had called & ordered the birthday package from the Oiler’s ticket office.  They were supposed to have a cookie cake for us, but the someone stole all the Oilers’ birthday cakes the night before!  The poor girl in charge of this program had to run to a grocery store and buy more cakes. So someone in Tulsa is eating a cookie cake that has ‘Happy Birthday Jory’ written on it, and that makes me smile.

I had an epic birthday, thank you all for the birthday wishes & I hope we will be celebrating yours soon!

Several of my friends have been bashing the month of February this week.  It’s cold, snowy, and not-quite spring. While I totally sympathize with those suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, I feel I’ve got to stick up to those grumpy-Gusses for my favorite month of the year. So here are my reasons why February is Fun-uary!
1) It’s short – like me! And that makes it fun-sized. Every other month is 30 or 31 days, except February, which has 28 days except on leap years when there’s 29 days in the month, but that won’t happen again until 2012 and the world is supposed to end then anyway so it won’t matter, but what was I saying? The point is, February is a month that keeps you on your toes and rockets you on through the year just a little faster than all the other (slow) months.
2) Drink up! February is chock full of holidays, and that means more excuses to throw a party. February’s got Groundhogs Day, Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine’s Day (or, Singles Awareness Day), President’s Day, Fat Tuesday, the Chinese New Year, Purim, my birthday – All the best drinking holidays! And usually, when there’s a holiday, there’s a sale at the liquor store.
3) It’s sporty. As mentioned, Super Bowl Sunday usually happens right at the top of February.  Also, there’s always great Hockey games to watch and high school & collegiate wrestling wraps up their seasons.  Basketball fans start to see their March Madness  brackets shape up, and baseball nuts start getting their pre-season scouting reports.  Winter sports fans can still get their fill of skiing, snowboarding & sledding; and last-but-not-least, the Winter Olympics provides us with two solid weeks of random sports, like curling.
4) It still has that “new year” smell.  2010 hasn’t been tamed just yet – there’s still ample time for taking chances, cashing in on opportunity, and making new plans.  It doesn’t matter if you haven’t quite stuck to your new year’s resolution, because it’s not too late to start in February! In fact, I say that February is the best time for making changes because February is for realists, and January is for idealists!
Those are some of the many reasons why I think February rocks.  I’m just doing my part to end month-discrimination here.

I got a Canon PowerShot SX10 IS for my birthday, so of course I had to test it out on the most photogenic member of the family – Ein. He is kind of a diva though.