Birthdays!

Yesterday Patrick and I celebrated our 25th birthdays. We are 6 days apart so each year we try to have a huge party. I always get anxious before parties because I want LOTS of people to come and I want people to have a good time. But I'm always nervous that no one will care and no one will come.

I've never really enjoyed my birthday before, but this year was so different. I don't know if I cared less or my friends cared more, but I had the BEST birthday I've ever had. The gifts I got were perfect and amazing, and I felt like the people that gave them knew me so well. We had 40-50 people over to our apartment, went through 24+ cokes, two bottles of margarita mix and tequila, 30+ beers, a big pitcher of sangria, 3 kinds of salsa, strawberry shortcake, chex, boxes or oreos, pretzels, brownies, fondue, cookies, fruit snacks, pizza, and vegetables. It was glorious.

I had friends come that originally said they couldn't make it, so those were great surprises. My old roommate Melanie came into town from Dallas, and all my other roommates came down from Athens. The festivities started at 7 and the last people didn't leave til 2am. And if you know me, my favorite part of a party is when the crowd starts to die down and the last of the guests are sitting on the couch hashing out the nights' events and catching up on life. Thats when I feel most connected to friends...because usually the ones that stay are the ones that really care and want to see things through to the very end.  Those that have stayed are in no rush to go anywhere and are always willing to finish off whatever alcohols still left in the fridge. The best conversations happen at the end of the night.

So thank you sweet friends for making our birthday so fun and memorable! There are 4 people in this photo who were not in attendance- Lauren and Jacquelyn are in California, Evie is in China, and Sarah is in Peru.