Birthday Festivities

I sent an e-mail out a month ago asking all my friends to "save the date" to celebrate my birthday with me on my actual birthdate, Friday, February 6th.  As it so happened, a week before my birthday, Sophie auditioned twice for jobs working on my birthday.  I thought the chances were slim that she would even book one of the jobs, but sure enough, she did!  Yay, Sophie, but boo, now I had to change the festivities.  Even though twice as many people would have been able to come to my birthday brunch if I had kept in on the 6th, I was still able to celebrate with a group for Happy Hour on Saturday and another group for brunch today.  I am blessed with good friends.

Happy hour at Michael's

A few of the friends from brunch at Del Frisco's Grille

My meal

Lemon birthday cake

A chill Sunday

The California Omelette at Amanadine + mocha = breakfast of champions

Dropped the girls off at Magicopolis for a birthday party, while Trung and I enjoyed lunch and a walk down the Promenade

Our neighbor pointed out that a hummingbird had made a home in a tree in our building's courtyard AND there were two eggs inside

Momma bird keeping watch

Big Hero 6

Our movie theater was offering a free showing of Big Hero 6 and especially since we hadn't seen it yet, we were all up for it.  Seating was on a first come first serve basis, so I arrived at 1:30 as suggested even though the movie didn't start until 3.  We did get prime seating though and enjoy a really fun movie with friends.

Lydia and Sophie with several of their friends

Interview with one of the animators (the one on the right)

Baymax and friends

National Yogurt Day (Take 1)

Enjoying free fro yo at Yogurtland and the owner, Alex, (on the right), wanted to take a picture of us to submit to the local newspaper

Court, coding, coffee, and crashing

Lydia had her first 8 AM basketball game of the season; those mornings are particularly brutal since we all have to wake up earlier than on a regular school day.  At least a win softened the early wake up call and we had an entire day ahead of us.

Lydia's first basket ever and Trung caught it one tape!

Lydia is my trooper...she gets right back up when she falls down

After the game, we dropped the girls off at their coding class and we went to Funnel Mill to enjoy some high end caffeine.  Trung tried the Turkish coffee and surprisingly enjoyed it.

Dark coffee for my "dark" hubby  :P

Later in the afternoon, we walked over to the school only to be kicked out minutes later.  Apparently, the gates are locked at sunset, which is really early these days.  Sophie still got some practice riding her bike on the sidewalk next to the school though...she's almost got it!

Liver biopsy

For the past few years, I have not had a menstrual cycle.  The first month it happened, I though I was pregnant because I have always been like clockwork.  After a pregnancy test confirmed that I was not pregnant (whew!), my doctor and I set out to find out why my period had stopped.  For the longest time, we thought maybe it was the change in birth control pills, so I switched to a no iron pill.  Then my blood work in November of 2013 showed that I had elevated ferritin levels; my body was absorbing too much iron and not having a period probably didn't help.  Looking back at past lab results, I noticed that my ferritin levels were slowly increasing, but now it had gotten substantially high.

So, I was referred to a hematologist (blood doctor), who honestly didn't provide any answers.   I got an ultrasound of my liver to see if it was swollen/enlarged, which it wasn't and after several blood donations, my ferritin levels were within a reasonable range.  The hematologist said I didn't need to see him again, so I thought I was in the clear.  Well, some of my blood lab results from my 2014 annual exam were still elevated, so my doctor referred me to a gastroenterologist to make sure once and for all that everything was okay.  Apparently not, because than he said that my elevated gamma globulin levels may indicate that I have autoimmune hepatitis...my immune system is attacking my liver.  So, I had a liver biopsy done today and now I wait for 3-5 business days for the gastroenterologist to give me the final verdict.

Prepped for my liver biopsy; my nurses were all super cool.  I had a brief scare when the doctor doing the biopsy thought I was pregnant; apparently someone had indicated incorrectly in my file.

Channeling ET

Hospital lunch...I was very disappointed that my apple wasn't pudding or jello.

I was much happier with my Vietnamese gourmet dinner

Ice cream for my top three supporters

The patch protecting the hole where the needle was stuck through to get a hairline, 1.5" piece of my liver.  Not everyone gets to see a piece of their liver, so that was pretty cool.  

Majestic sunset

We saw the most beautiful sunset tonight; this picture doesn't do it justice.

Dine LA

Tonight I went with a few of my lady friends to Coast Restaurant for Dine LA.  We enjoyed some wonderful seafood and conversations.  We haven't gone out in over a month, so we had much to talk about.  Some of us hadn't even see each other since the new year!  So much fun!

 Seared tuna with asparagus

 Marscapone Cheesecake

The ladies

The Dream win

Lydia's team, Dream, played a team with much smaller girls, so naturally, they won!  Most of the players on her team scored at least one, and though Lydia has six attempts, she is still trying to get that elusive first basket.

Lydia's final attempt was her best one

The last day

Today was the last day for the ice rink to be open.  Even though we had just gone on Tuesday, I still had a pair of tickets that I had won through Facebook from the city.  The girls said that they would be okay skating by themselves (I didn't want to purchase a full price ticket for myself), so I took them after my pilates class.

Starting off with worried looks on their faces

The kiddie rink was very wet, but the girls managed to skate a few rounds

Actor Chad Lowe was also there with his mom and daughter

Way to go, Lydia...and she's smiling too!

Looks like Sophie is the skier and Lydia is the skater

Sophie was content staying in the kiddie rink