9am: It all started with a morning scare….by four birthday elves…Caitlin, Becky, Heather, and Sarah came charging in my homestead wearing these masks and delivering my first birthday present (a favorite cereal of mine) and a scavenger hunt for me to find all my Swedish Fish (my favorite candy) throughout the day.
10am: I went to church and was surprised to find out that every hour until 7pm, my team had a present for me to open. So, yes…even at church, I was opening presents! These presents throughout the day ranged from Winnie the Poo cutlery, q-tips, and goggles…to stickers, fun pens, and many other hilarious personalized gifts.
After church, I was able to call my brother Joey who has the same birthday…I turned 24 and he turned 25. I was so thankful to be able to talk to him and sing happy birthday to him!
Here’s my Joey:
1pm: My team (minus Jackie and Lindsey who are currently with a group in Panama), Seth, and a wonderful couple from church, went out to an Italian restaurant for lunch.
After lunch…we went to the mall. And our activity was a favorite past time of mine in high school….trying on funny clothes and laughing at each other! These pictures only capture a fraction of how hilarious it was to see Kyle, Seth, and Danny in women’s clothes, and preppy clothes.
Sorry, boys…I had to post it….it’s just too funny.
Boy Band? Country Club girls?
In the evening…we enjoyed dinner and Pin-the-Tale-on-the-Donkey….
In case you couldn’t tell…..Seth won.
Then, they brought out the cake. It wasn’t just any ole’ cake….it was a PIZOOKIE. My wonderful friends made a creation of all my favorite things: cookie cake, ice cream, and peanut M&M’s….it was amazing. And my favorite part about it is we had 15 forks and we all dug in….that’s community!
This is our “We love Birthdays” face!!!
After we recovered from our sugar comas…we headed off to the roller skating rank. I imagined many youngsters, fun music, and a chill atmosphere…and was surprised to see many hard-core, serious Latino adults roller skating really fast all night. It was hilarious, and quite the cultural experience. I only had one major tumble, but many close calls. Here is a picture of me attempting to dance and skate backwards at the same time…
…and here’s our squad doing the “Thriller”…
To sum it all up, this birthday was ridiculously amazing. I am so blessed by my wonderful team, and my wonderful Sarah who is a birthday enthusiast, and my wonderful squad who has been such a blessing to me. On top of all of this, I was surprised with a video Sarah and Danny made of the people from my squad who were in Panama during my birthday…here is the video:
Colleen’s Big Day from Danny Gutman on Vimeo.
