Birthdays are One of my Favorite Things.

Yes, I'm 21. Woop woop. I think that would actually be a real "woop woop" if that changed anything with reguards to certain beverage privalages normally recieved at this age. But, by God's grace, I'm here at Moody. Implication - no booze.

My birthday was a wonderful day. Honestly, I haven't felt so loved in quite a while. It started at midnight when my old floor surprised me by waking me up with a cake and singing happy birthday. On eight north we had this tradition that won us the title of "fastest forks in Houghton". The tradition goes something like this: every birthday girl is to be woken up the moment her birthday arrives (midnight) with singing and cake. Every one meets in her room with a fork. After the birthday girl's take the first bite it's a race to see how fast we can down the rest of the cake. We've done it in 2 minutes and 13 seconds, if I'm not mistaken. So, though I'm not on eight north this year, they brought the tradition to me on nine north. They included my girls, which made them feel special. However, my girls didn't really understand what was going on. They took little nibbles from the side of the cake and then wished me happy birthday and bid the group goodnight. Thankfully, I have one very aware ex-roommate. She calmly explained to them that they were not allowed to leave my room until the cake pan was empty. They laughed. She just handed them their forks back.

As the cake was finishing up, one of my girls motioned for me to followe her into the hall. I instantly knew something was wrong. She said Stephanie (my supervisor) needed me. I ran down the hall to Steph who was on the phone. "You need to be with Bethany right now". And so I got to go be with one of my best friends in a difficult moment. I wouldn't have traded it for the world. And I mean that.

In the morning, my small group took me and Bethany out for breakfast. I spent most of my day, from that point on, practiving my sermon for Wednesday. Later that day, my floor threw me a surprise party on the roof with chocolate chip pancakes (a Gilbaugh family tradition) and gave me the game Quelf. We played for an hour or so until I had to go practice my sermon again, and then Steph took me out for dinner and we went back to small group. On my way up to her apartment for small group, I got flowers from a sweet daddy of mine! So...needless to say, my day was full of my favorite things: food, surprises, flowers, more food, my small group, my floor, and preaching. What a great day... :)