happy birthday to alyx!!!

a big happy birthday to my sweet, beautiful, smart, kind, loving, newly blonde niece, alyx! we hope she had a great day.

played a little tennis this morning. enjoying trying out different rackets in anticipation for my new liquid metal 8 racket which should be at the store mid-june. i usually call it the metal liquidator for some weird reason. the guys at the tennis shop always give me a crazy look when i ask about it. the ladies i played with today were a little less than competetive. in fact, i ran to return one ball and they called me "so competetive". okay. most of them were there just to chat.

i had a sort of unusual experience today. the day unfolded in such a way that i found myself (and ella) at barnes & noble looking for a gift for my grammy's birthday. it wasn't my original plan, then it was, and then we changed plans again and eventually ended up at the bookstore. it's all in the timing. anyway, ella was crawling under tables, meowing and being a cat while i browsed. eventually i decided to head back to the children's section and had to grab ella. she threw a fit and kicked off her sparkly gold shoes, which flew across the store. a sweet little lady commented on ella's beautiful skirt. ella stopped screaming and i began to have a conversation with this sweet lady. long story short, we chatted for 20 or so minutes and found out she has tongue cancer, which she is having removed in a couple of weeks. she asked where we were from and where my husband had attended college. "oh, isn't that school affiliated with the mor...oh, are you a mormon"? "why, yes i am". then a little conversation about the church ensued. i mentioned where our building was. just so happens she lives right next to it. coincidence? i think not. she lives just a couple of miles from us and said she would like to come to church after her procedure. we exchanged phone numbers, names and addresses. she invited me over for a visit and a cup of coffee after her surgery. we'll get to the coffee issue later. we hugged and she said "honey, i feel like we were supposed to meet today". i think maybe we were.

also, my friend eliza took pity on us and had us over for a delicious dinner. afton asked for the recipe! i have such nice friends, seriously. i don't deserve them!

the girls and i then headed to stake enrichment so i could head up the dessert assembly again tonite. all was well and we had an amazing evening with a couple of presentations that were really fantastic. one dealt with discussing difficult topics and specifically focused on the issue of pornography. the next presentation was given by a local woman who counsels domestic abuse victims. i literally felt sick to my stomach after her presentation, but it was amazingly informative and i hope it helps someone. she talked about the different types of abuse and how it usually starts with the abuser wanting control and the different ways they manipulate their victim. it was eye opening and like watching the most awful horror movie. i'm hoping to volunteer at some point. the presenter was an amazing, strong woman with a masters in counseling. also, the sisters in the stake brought supplies to be donated to their safe house. it was a great enrichment.

time to sleep. we're running in the morning to ready our legs for the race on saturday.