Before I say Happy Birthday to the love of my life, I have to say Thank You to the people who helped me make it the Best Birthday Ever.

To the 78 of you who wished Mack a “happy birthday” on Facebook… Thank You!

To the family that drove in to Fort Worth Saturday night to join us at Reata and sing and eat too much… Thank You!

To our friends… to J & Christy, Meg & Eric, Kevin & Nicole, Abby & Eric… you eight amazing people who spent 10 hours partying with us in the best most responsible grown up way possible… THANK YOU.

Mack has said over and over that he had what is easily his best birthday ever, and while the planning of all this kind of stressed me out a little, I know I couldn’t possibly do it if y’all didn’t all love him nearly as much as I do.

A group of our eight dear friends joined Mack’s parents, Mack’s sister and her son, my folks, my grandparents, and of course our children at Reata for a steak dinner that was ridiculously yummy. And maybe desserts. I didn’t get a group picture there… for shame.

Afterwards, our plucky group of friends went and checked in to our block of rooms at the Belmont Hotel in Dallas (my personal favorite property). It was SO nice to have a set of rooms away from the main house so we could be as loud as we wanted. Because Mack turning 30 is a big freakin’ deal, we splurged a bit and got the Terrace Suite, which had a great living room for our group of 10 to hang out in, as well as a private hot tub on a balcony facing downtown Dallas. Again, in a mega-fail, I took ZERO real pictures of the room or the balcony, or of the galavanting that happened at Dave & Busters.

Oh yeah… we went to Dave & Busters. Because when you’re 30, you take your friends to a place where you can play lots of Skeeball and win 5,000 tickets… which you can then spend buying everyone a shot glass, a kazoo and a chinese finger trap, among other joyous purchases. And then there can be Patriotic Kazoo performances, and iPhone pictures, and 3 a.m. pizza deliveries.

Ya know what? On second thought, maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t bring along the big camera. Here’s a collection of Instagrams from myself, Abby, & Meg…

Maybe my favorite thing to happen during birthday weekend was a gift from Kevin & Nicole! They brought Mack a Polaroid camera, and several boxes of film, so the entire weekend could be captured in silly, grainy, blown-out, misfocused, WONDERFULNESS. I’m a polaroid junkie, and we had so much fun with this little camera.

And finally, much to the dismay of all the half-inebriated, definitely-not-picture-ready, but totally-willing-because-they’re-awesome friends we have… we took a group picture at about 2 a.m. on the balcony. TRULY, Mack and I are bowled over by how blessed we are to share our lives with these generous, fabulous, hilarious, one-of-a-kind amazing friends. I hope you’ll all forgive me for putting this picture on the internet. It’s terribly unflattering of most of us, but it makes my heart so very happy.

If you’re going to turn 30, my love, this was the way to do it. I just know this is going to be the best year of your life…. so far! 🙂