My birthday week is over...

...and it was WONDERFUL!
I am so blessed to have wonderful people in my life.... Wonderful people in my life who humor me when it comes to my birthday week :) And I know that not all of you entirely understand the whole birthday week thing... but I wanted to share about mine... I know that life can be taken in an instant. I know that we should life life to the fullest and celebrate each day of life we have. I love any excuse to celebrate... especially a birthday! So here's to celebrating life! :)

Monday I was taken to the movies. We saw "The Taking of Pelham 123" and it was one of those sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat-and-hold-your-breath kinds of movies. I liked it. And I liked seeing a movie at 11 at night like I did when I was a teenager.

On Tuesday I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific with my mom and her kindergarten class. I got to pet rays and hold lorikeets... One of the things I like to do but don't get to do nearly enough is Scuba Dive... so I have kind of a weird fascination with fish and water-dwelling creatures. I think I was more excited than the kids!
Wednesday was a busy day... lunch with my friend (and intern), Sarah, and then youth group Wednesday night. The kids all sang happy birthday to me which was kind of cool. Sarah also made me the coolest present ever (she made it out of spakle, sand, and her feet!!!):
Thursday was super fun. I had a "Friends" marathon with my good friend Bianca, and Javier. Sam stopped in for a little bit too. We watched several hours of "Friends" and laughed like crazy. Bianca also brought me balloons and a Red Velvet birthday cake. Mmmmmm... I'd never had that kind of cake before and it was delicious! We topped the night off with a yummie pizza dinner. I love relaxed nights like that with friends.

Friday was welcomed with many midnight text messages from friends and family wishing me a happy birthday. That continued throughout the day, along with facebook messages and twitter tweets :) Friday morning I headed to Ihop to meet the birthday "gang" and have breakfast to celebrate my day of birth. The people at Ihop even sang and brought me a pancake with a face.

**Disclaimer: I did not have my camera on me ONCE last week. All of the pictures you see were taken with phone cameras, so you'll have to excuse the quality. I know it is not the best compared to what you usually see on this blog :)From there, Sam and Javier and I headed up the mountain and went on a hike. It was hot outside and beautiful and fun. Although I am not very good at hiking... we still had a great time, and they were pretty patient with me. It was my birthday after all :) We even found a little water hole. After the hike, I raced back to the church to be there for the Dinner Theatre that the teens were putting on. They did an amazing job. After it was over, the teens simultaneously broke into (very LOUD) renditions of the birthday song. While dancing :) It was great.

Saturday morning I woke up early and headed to the Orange County Swap meet with my parents. We spent the day wandering through rows an rows of all kinds of stuff we didn't need but were convinced to buy anyway. We had expected sun, but it was cold and rainy. We still had fun.
I even had a wonderful hot dog lunch :)
Birthdays only come around once a year, and I know it means that I'm one year older, but I think I will always have a birthday week :)

Thanks to all of you for the wonderfully kind birthday wishes... the gifts, the phone calls, the text messages, the facebook messages... it all played a part in making my birthday wonderful!