Birthday started out with yummy sausage and biscuits - Shelley makes some good ones! - then turned to WoW (of course) where a group of us tried to venture through a dungeon called Lower Blackrock Spire. However, we didn't get very far. After a couple of hours we had gotten only halfway, maybe, so I called it off. Not sure why we did so poorly, probably a combination of reasons.

For presents Paul and Brenda got me a WoW cap and badge and some caffeinated chocolate mints (yum!); Shelley got me three books from my Amazon wishlist; and Mom braved the Internet to send me an Amazon gift cert., which I shall use to buy the HBO series "Rome" on DVD. Thanks everyone!

For dinner Shelley found Drago, a place in Santa Monica that carries truffles! We drove down an hour early so we could visit the Santa Monica Pier with Kelley. I took her on her first carousel ride; she liked it at first, but only for a while, at which point it was "Let me off this horse NOW!"



Kelley goes 'round and up and down



Unfortunately, Drago didn't have truffles yet. Apparently it's not quite season, which they failed to mention when Shelley called and asked whether they had a truffle menu. So I have a raincheck for that part of my birthday present and I'm looking forward to that!

We went ahead and had dinner there anyway, which was tasty but pretty expensive. Kelley made her first phone call, and found out how fun it is to dip a straw into icewater and slide it up the inside of a glass so that it flicks out over daddy and mommy.

(Kelley likes to play with the phone, so it's our number-one distraction device. At some point while we were talking or ordering, she managed to dial her grandma in New York and apparently actually said "hi" a couple times during the call. Very cute, really.)