A Birthday to Remember

Since my birthday was last Monday, the 12th, I thought I'd give a little recap on how it went down. To be honest, I was kind of bummed out that it was on a Monday (the lamest day of the week) but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun and the party even continued later on that week. But I'll have to save that story for the next post. :) So here it goes.

Monday morning, got up around 8:30 am and Derek was already in the kitchen. A few minutes later he brought me breakfast in bed, fried potatoes and eggs-my favorite! He is quite the little chef, I was impressed! After breakfast he had to go to class and mine didn't start until 11:30, so I took my time, showered, straightened my hair and tried to find a cute birthday outfit (tradition). Went to class from 11:30-4:45 pm, during which my risk management class had me stand up and attempted to sing me the happy birthday song. Which would have been great had they tried to sing with even a little bit of enthusiasm but they didn't, because we don't really know each other, which is understandable. I guess. Needless to say, it was a little ((awkward)) but I appreciated the thought.

After class, I called Derek for a ride home but he said I couldn't come home for another hour. Another hour!? So I did some homework in the I-center and waited for my ride, trying not to let my imagination run too wild. So when he finally picked me up and we walked into our apartment, I silently held my breath. AAHH! Nothing. People didn't jump out of the closets, no balloons were thrown in my face and no birthday sign was hung up from our window. Just our home, very normal as could be. Now I have to say, I wasn't expecting a surprise anything but when a husband makes you wait an extra hour on campus.. well I thought maybe somebody would jump out of the closet and scare me with a popper. Oh well, maybe it was coming later...I thought...

Well later came and there we sat on the couch. Derek said he had to do some homework and I said, "seriously?" And he said, "ya" so I went and checked the mail. So glad I did because I got a very nice card from my family back home, which was special. Well after about an hour, the Bulls v. Knicks game had started so of course we watched that. At about 5:45-6pm our neighbors Tom and Jenny McKinney texted Derek and told us to come down (which is very common, since we practically live at each others houses). So we went down, opened the door and SURPRISE! Our friends Emily and Don Johnson were over there and surprised me. It was cute and I was happy. They had already baked pizzas for dinner so we went back upstairs to our place and watched the game and ate pizza. I also found out that the extra hour Derek needed was so that he could make my birthday cheesecakes. Sweet boy :)

Then at 7 the real fun was about to begin. Derek made "reservations" for us to go rock climbing!! At first I was a little hesitant because I hadn't really been rock climbing but regardless, we all geared up and drove to Regional Walk Wall at about 7:40. When we pulled up there were a lot of cars in the parking lot. Derek said more than usual, but since I didn't know what was usual, I didn't think it would be a big deal. So we went inside and were greeted with thousands of people all over the place. Or so it felt like. In addition to the fifty little gymnastic boys and girls, there was a HUGE FHE group of like 20 people in front of us. They were already geared up and even getting their belay lessons. An employee came up to us in a frantic panic and basically said, "I'm so sorry, this never happens, we are never this busy, please come back another time." Ah! Derek had called three weeks prior to reserve the rock wall but since they don't make "reservations," the employee over the phone told us he would just turn away any big groups that came, to make sure we could climb.

Well. That didn't happen. So the frantic employee gave me a free climbing pass for all of March and a discount for all my friends to climb for $5. Which was awesome. So we left, disappointed but looking forward to Friday when we were going to go again. (Again, I will blog about this next!)

So we went back to our apartment and played games and ate brownie sundaes. It was still a lot of fun. I've decided that it doesn't really matter what you do on your birthday, as long as you're with good friends and people you love. Our friends could have easily gone home after we were turned away from the climbing center, but they didn't. They stuck around ALL night and made sure my birthday was great. I'm so blessed. My birthday was definitely not what I expected but it really did turn out great. Thanks to my cute boy and all the work and effort he put into making it special. Thanks for all the birthday love again and looking forward to a fun filled 22nd year of life!