Birthday Weekend!

Friday was my 27th birthday. It was a great day that actually turned out to extend into the entire weekend...

Friday, my Mom, Kimberly and Lexi treated me to lunch. Afterward, my mom feed my Starbucks addiction and bought me a venti white chocolate mocha with extra whip (my favorite treat, but I only ever buy the grande so getting a venti was a REAL treat). Then she and Lexi came home and the two got to work on my birthday cake (strawberry cake...My mom makes the best!) Lexi LOVES helping my mom cook so she was beside herself. Add to that a very top secret present she and my mom were working on and that just fueled her excitement...I just adore how she and Austin remind me to be thrilled about the small things...They are champs at that!

My presents didn't come until later in the evening because Lexi had music camp all last week from 5:30-8:30 so once we started opening, it was craaaazy! Lexi helped me open while Austin ran around with some tissue paper like he had just won the lottery (again, it's the smallest things that bring them the biggest smiles...). I got an adorable "Aunt" precious moments from Alexis and Austin, the book "Still Growing" by Kirk Cameron from Kimberly and Justin. I'd been wanting it for awhile so I was thrilled! Kimberly also got me a daily calendar with sayings about sisters on each day...I love it! My parents got me Season 3 of LOST, and the book "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. I started it on Saturday and I think I read it with a different perspective than I would have if I had read it when he was still here. It's a bit of a difficult read knowing that he's gone, and that it happened just a few weeks ago, but makes the lessons in it that much more meaningful, I think.

The gift I received that totally blew me away and had me holding back tears was one from my mom. It was an album she had made of my college years and Graduation. She LOVES to scrapbook so this album, I'm told, became her goal and she worked on it every chance she got. It truly is fantastic. It's got pictures of the graduation ceremony with captions of who's who and little snapshots of things that happened through those years. I can't adequately describe it in words, it's something that you really have to see to understand what it means but, it truly was a labor of love for my mom and I adore it! I find myself pulling it out every night to look at it again and every time see something else that I hadn't seen earlier. It's amazing and as I looked through it, I was once again able to see how God had worked in my life during that time and made me stronger in the end. That album will always be a reminder of what God, my family, and friends pulled me through. God bless my mom for the hours of work she put into it (that was the top secret gift I mentioned above...I was banned from our guest bedroom for three days while my mom put the final touches on the album). I ended my actual birthday with the thrill of watching Michael Phelps win another gold medal "by a fingernail!" What a way to finish my day!!

Saturday, my parents, Kimberly, Justin, Alexis, and Austin and I all traveled to the Woodlands for dinner at Olive Garden. Because of music camp, we weren't able to go Friday so we postponed it until Saturday. I was treated to more Starbucks on the way home and got home in time to see Michael Phelps make history!

And really, I get an extra birthday present tomorrow (Monday) because they are showing a re-run of Patrick Dempsey's appearance on Rachael Ray that I missed the first time around and was upset about..Happy belated birthday to me!!!

I had a fantastic birthday as you can tell...My family and friends made it so amazing and I'm so thankful for the e-mails, texts, and phone calls I got. God has done some really incredible things in my life this past year and I really believe that all of that is leading up to God doing something that is beyond what I can even imagine....I can't wait to see what God is up to because I know with what He's been showing me lately that it's something incredible....We'll all look back a year from now and say, "Wow! Look what God did!!" It's going to be awesome!!!

Thanks again for ALL of the love and support and especially prayers....The best is yet to come!!!! I love you guys!