As I get older, my perfect birthday plans have gotten pretty mellow. Dinner at home (takeout, of course) with E & a good friend, followed by cake and ice cream (some things never change). This year, I decided to re-instate another family birthday tradition: the chocolate cake. For all the birthdays I can remember, my mom always made the same cake for us: a chocolate cake layered with canned cherries and whipped cream frosting, always with the same signature red heart on top. My sister made the same cake for E's birthday when she was visiting last month and it inspired me to make it for myself. At my sister's recommendation, I replaced the canned cherry layer with a spread of jam mixed with fresh strawberries and used the same strawberries for the iconic red heart. No matter how old you get, I think there should always be at least one birthday treat that makes you feel like a kid again.

Celebrating today by taking it easy and baking a cake.

It's been a long time since I've seen Manhattan at night. These photos are giving me the fix I need. Found here, via here. What an amazing trove of images.

I'm afraid the closest thing to a tip I can offer is this peek inside R's travel bag.
Despite being a frequent flyer and her young age (with family all over the map, it's hard not to be), R is not good on planes. She gets way too exhausted to play nice and way too riled up to fall asleep. On almost every flight we've taken, I've been the embarrassed mom in the back of the plane trying desperately to get my little beast to stop crying. I don't know why I haven't figured out the magic to getting her to relax -- it is magic, right? It seems to be the only possible explanation as I've tried everything else. The one thing I have learned is how to make an awesome travel bag. Her favorite thing is the pom-pom fringe, but the sock comes in a close second.

Did I say I'd have tips?? Hardly. But I do have a couple more shots.

We stayed two nights in Old San Juan, but really only had one full day to explore. The old colonial architecture and pastel painted buildings were as beautiful as I had heard, but sadly the parts of the neighborhood we walked around felt more like a touristy mall than the caribbean paradise we were hoping for. I would say 98% of the people we walked past were tourists, probably 75% of them had just gotten off one of the cruise ships docked up the street.

We ended up spending most of our time exploring the old forts & city walls lining the shoreline, and I'm glad we did. The buildings were really amazing - I had never seen that kind of Spanish Colonial Architecture in person and loved it! I felt like I was walking around the set of Bizet's Carmen. You would think that, because I liked it so much, I would have taken loads of pictures, right? Wrong. Mostly I just shot Ruth looking grumpy, and became kind of obsessed with this one look out room covered in modern, "I wuz here" style graffiti. It was the only part of the whole place that was defaced, but man did people go wild in there. 

After two nights, we took a small prop plane to the island of Culebra. You can also take a ferry, but we had heard the ride was REALLY rocky and I am so glad we opted for the flight. There were only 5 of us on the 6 seater (including the pilot) and the views were incredible. You could see all of San Juan as you left the main island and then, as we flew over the ocean, the water was so clear you could practically see the fish swimming under the surface. Someone we spoke to claimed he actually saw turtles from the window. It felt like the type of plane ride island tours I imagine millionaires take, but the tickets were pretty cheap and it was really very practical.
And then, the beach. Flamenco beach is advertised as one of the top 3 most beautiful beaches in the world, and it measured up pretty well. Unfortunately, R was not impressed. She was not really interested in the sand and the waves of the ocean totally freaked her out. The only thing that got us through the week was that she LOVED the pool back at the hotel. So, she's going to be one of those types of travelers. . . We should have just booked her on the cruise ship when we had a chance in Old San Juan.

We are back from Puerto Rico this weekend. We had a wonderful time - two nights in San Juan and four nights on the island of Culebra. In my typical vacation style, I hardly took any photographs, so not much to show, really. I will get together what little I can, along with some travel tips for a bigger post later. For now, all you get is R's new favorite facial expression. Oooh.

Remember these eggs I was working on? They are finally out in a recent issue of Beauty Inc. I wasn't on the shoot, but David Lewis Taylor did an amazing job with them. The editor had been excited by all the candy-colored make-up hitting the stores right now and asked me to create these eggs in glossy sugary hues. No matter how long I do this work, it's always exciting to see the projects in print.