January 4th is my birthday, and it was also the date that the race started for H-squad. It was my first birthday away from home; I had just flown into Miami at 10:30pm on the 3rd (to meet my squad mates who I didn’t really know), to fly out to the Dominican Republic. I spent the night on the MIA floor, got two hours sleep, and traveled all day on the 4th. It was cool but not what most people would expect for their 21st birthday… We make birthdays kind of a big deal here on the race, because we are our family out here and we try to make it as fun and like home as possible. Being that my birthday was so early and no one really knew me, my team decided to throw me a surprise birthday party. So on May 26, 2009 I turned 23. I know … the math doesn’t add up. Right? Well the story is that I had told my team that I feel like everyone on the squad is the same age as me and it kind of freaks me out when I get reminded that I am the second youngest on the whole squad. Having stated my opinion my team asked me what age that would be and I said 23… so ever since then the joke has been that I need to act my age… which is 23. However I didn’t know that I would actually be turning 23 this month. My team had planned this for a little while apparently and they did it with out me knowing. I was definantly surprised. They all gave me notes and random presents through out the day, we went to a great ice cream place, and saw Night at the Museum 2 in the theater in Bangkok. It was AWSOME! Thanks team for my 21st/23rd birthday.
