Step #5: A Banana Needs to Fully Ripen!

HAPPY 20^th BIRTHDAY TO MYSELF!!! Wooot! I am no longer a “teen” and am only a year away from going on a mission!!! Gah! I can’t believe it! Well yes I can, and it’s awesome!!!

All the birthday fun started at midnight Oct 8^th with Julie running into my room while I was doing homework and screamed “HAPPY BIRTHDAY! HA! I was the first!” Then later that night, like around 2am, while we were doing Roses, Thorns, and Buds I said, “Well when I was a teenager…” and then we all bust into laugher.

Well the night didn’t end there. Julie and I started preparations for dessert around 2am-ish? Well we mainly focused on the cheesecake, because we all know how long those take… I came up with the idea of having cheese cake and my-mommy’s-special-birthday-cake for two reasons: (1) Melanie doesn’t like chocolate and I didn’t want her left out on dessert eating goodness and also (2) I was expecting a lot of people and so I didn’t think one cake would be enough. However, this is a birthday cheesecake mind you, so I didn’t want it to be regular-old-cheesycake. (Don’t get me wrong – any cheesecake is delicious – but I didn’t want my heavenly-chocolate one to out shine the cheesecake.) Thus I made the executive decision and made the cheesecake RAINBOW! It took around 4 hours and I must say for the first cheesecake me and Julie made (and not watched someone make…yeah Jessica, I am pretty sure you made that Lemon one all by yourself…), it was beautifully delicious!

The actual day of my birthday I had to quickly study for my Middle East history exam and take it. I was kinda bummed that I had to take a test on my birthday, but I must day I was very pleased with the results as well as the experience! So in short I went to the Testing Center and when the guy took my BYU-I Card and slid it (to figure out which test I needed) he paused, then looked at me and said, “Well Happy Birthday! I didn’t know your I-card told you people’s birthdays!” Then he went through the typical procedure of telling me what I can use on my test, except his way of phrasing it I liked much better. He told me, “Well it looks like the only thing you can use on this test is a pencil, your brain, and the Holy Ghost – thank goodness for that!” And so consequently when the bubble-sheet-printer-guy handed me my answer sheet he asked “So what can you use on your test?” To which I gleefully responded, “a pencil, my brain, and the Holy Ghost!” Then I headed off to the Music Room to test my luck with taking a test to music. Which I must say was amazing! It was very relaxing and I think actually did help my thoughts flow! The end of this very different and exciting testing experience was that I passed my exam with a whopping 97% - AWESOME! Yep! That’s right, the computer told me “AWESOME!”

Back at home, I make my special cake with Julie and then our apartment headed over to Da Pineapple Grill for dinner at 6pm. There we meet up with the only member of my FHE brothers that could make it – that happened to be Dad. You can always count on Dad! :P My old roommate from first semester, Alexa Collet, was there too, and it was awesome to see her again – she also paid for my dinner! Yay! It was super fun and delicioius! Especially because they actually had Siemen this time! (They are usually all out by the time I go) Once we were done eating we headed back to the apt. for CAKE! Megan McKenna and Katelyn Moreno (old interior design buddies) and also Benjamin Moote (my old FHE brother and newly discovered cousin) came to join in then! It was awesome and overall a VERY, VERY AMAZING BIRTHDAY!!!! :D