it's my birfday.

Yesterday was my 27th birthday. That is right....I've officially completed 27 years of living. Birthdays, for me, for a long time have been sort of a strange thing. I cannot tell you the last time I spent a birthday around my family. If I wasn't working at camp, which was 7 years of my life, I was in high school and attending one. This means that most of my birthdays past childhood have been spent around people who were either a week before or a month before, total strangers. In some ways this has made birthdays for me not that big of a deal. Melanie, my roommate in Texas, says that this is unacceptable and fully believes that birthdays should be celebrated in grand fashion, that you have a birthday month, not just a birth"day" and that your birthday is "coming up" when it is at least 4 months away. She is very good at celebrating birthdays and always makes sure it doesn't pass with "no big deal."

This year, for some reason still unbeknown to me, I felt apprehensive about this day. I kind of just wanted it to pass by. It had nothing to do with the number 27 or with getting older...I don't really care about that...I just felt strange about it. This might have more to do with where I am in life in general right now....not sure....but I just didn't really care to celebrate or be celebrated all that much.

But I am lucky....there are people in my life who wouldn't stand for that no matter how I felt about it and the day came.....and there was celebration....and I felt loved. The celebration actually started on July 9th and 10th when my amazing sister, Lauren and amazing friend, Amy, took me on a surprise weekend trip to the mountains. We slid down rocks into freezing water, got kicked out of a national park area, hung out in Ashville, explored more waterfalls and slid down more rocks...ate yummy things, etc. It was amazing! They did way too much for me and went above and beyond. The celebrating continued on the actual day with a little birthday kayaking with the sister at Broad River Outpost, which is in the middle of nowhere near Athens. We did a 6 mile "white water" ride. It was super fun. The rapids were not plentiful, but it was fun. The best part was when we realized me missed a better rapid, so we got of the kayaks, dragged them back up the river, lugged them up a huge rock and put them back in the water to go down the better rapid.

After this, Lauren had planned a surprise dinner at Uncle Julio's (a tex-mex place from Fort Worth that happens to be in Atlanta and is SUPER yummy!!!!). She invited a bunch of amazing people and then we headed across the street to Cafe Intermezzo. I had been wanting to go there for dessert for a while. It was quite yummy also.

Like I said, I haven't been around my family on my birthday in a long time, but it was a blessing to be close to my sister this year. She did an amazing job making me feel loved yesterday...as did all the people who came. Thanks sister! You are truly wonderful!