Finally 20!

I remember as a kid that on your birthday your whole body felt tingly, as if you were growing up one year all at once. Getting older was magical, and you honestly felt more grown up every time your birthday rolled around.

Thanks to Facebook, your birthday is more of a giant love fest. Family members, best friends, friends from years ago, and people you hardly know post/text you happy birthday. Its really quite amazing to see how many people are willing to take the effort to say happy birthday. I know I try to wish people happy birthday as much as I can, but sometimes it doesn't feel appreciated. But I just wanted you to know that I truly did appreciated all the birthday wishes I received yesterday.

But enough mushiness! Want to know how I celebrated my departure from teenagedom?

IDAHO:
My family wanted to celebrate my birthday, so exactly two weeks before my birthday my parents took me to Mongolian BBQ. Oddly enough it is one of my favorite places to eat in Boise. Then I invited some friends to come over and play rockband because we my family got that for Christmas. We also had yummy Italian sodas and laughed A LOT.

UTAH:

Dan's cake: JAZZ HANDS!!!

About a week before my birthday, I was staying at my aunts house to go to training for my internship. I was pretty close to Provo, so I had some friends come pick me up and we had a small get-together at Christine's apartment. By small, I mean that probably 50 people came in and out during the course of the party. We didn't have enough of Dan's delicious Death by Chocolate cake to share, so we cut it up into sacrament sized pieces and passed it around. I had so much fun reconnecting with people and saying goodbye. Thank to all who came, and especially Dan and Christine for making it all happen!

Chantel Sandwich!!!

Apt 40 Love :)

TEXAS:

The River Walk with Liz 

It was luck of the draw that Liz and I both had work off on Thursday. I had already been planning things I wanted to do and see in San Antonio, and I was so excited to have a girls day in San Antonio acting like a tourist.

We started out by getting all gussied up and hitting the riverwalk. The riverwalk is as pretty as all the pictures show, but we went at 10:30 am so it was kind of dead. And what I didn't know is that most of the riverwalk is restaurants. I thought there would be more shops along the way. But we walked along the riverwalk to get to the River Center Mall and we ate lunch and shopped around there.

As we were walking from the riverwalk to the car parked in our employee parking lot, Liz and I were approached and followed by a homeless man. So our next destination was to find an outdoor store and get mace!!! We called ahead at this Cabelas-like place and drove a ways to get there. We had to get a lot of help to find the right department, but when we found the right aisle these two guys were cleaning up in that aisle and were totally flirting with us. Isn't that incredibly ironic? We are two really freaked out girls buying mace, and you want to flirt with us NOW??? They were really nice and cute though, so we didn't mind at all. :)

Our managers had been telling us about this Italian restaurant that felt like you walked into an episode of the Sopranos, so I was dying to go there. Sure enough, the place was dimly lit with a huge chandelier in the middle of the room. They had really fast service and our waiter had the best Italian mob accent. There was an old man in the corner playing a synthesizer and that was the music.

Isn't the old guy cute???

I told the waiter near the end of the meal that it was my birthday, and he told the old guy to play "Happy Birthday" and brought me a BEAUTIFUL piece of chocolate cake complete with a lit candle on top. The rest of the people in the restaurant clapped for me and I felt amazing. The waiter was really funny all night and he was saying [in a deep, raspy Italian voice] "we ran out of tiramisu, but I figured you're a woman and therefore you would love the chocolate cake!" Well he was spot on!

Blowing out my candle

See? Absolutely beautiful cake. YUMMMM

I've been telling people I'm 20 for months, so I didn't really feel all that different on my birthday. But I did notice how much more I felt like an adult. Here I am, in Texas, living on my own with a job. I really feel very grown up. And my birthday truly was magical this year. Thank you everyone who made it extra special for me. I'm excited for what this year is going to bring!