Birthday Week!

This is about a month late but I celebrated my 23rd birthday on November 29th! My unbelievably kind friends wanted to make this first birthday outside of the U.S. really special so November 23-30 was dubbed BIRTHDAY WEEK. I made the bold decision to do 1 "just fun" thing every day. It wasn't always something big but always something I enjoy. Over the week I: went to Starbucks, polished my nails, got a haircut (for those of you who don't know - I LOVE HAIRCUTS), saw a Chinese musical, and Skyped a dear friend.

On my actual birthday, my friends were all in on a surprise massage. We were all ready to go to campus for lunch (our usual routine) and I ended up at a spa instead. Jackpot!

Ashley and I then had lunch at an Irish bar & grill. Delish! They were even playing Christmas music!!

Later that night, we made my birthday dinner an all-out event & invited a bunch of students from the UM campus. We went to my favorite Indian place right down the street.

This 5 language "Happy Birthday" matinee lasted a while...
It was great!

We walked to a cafe down the street for ice cream & games

Oh, but that's not the end of it! Ashley contacted a few people and asked them to write a little note. The first few from my sisters were more than enough reason to bring the Kleenex out but then I turned the pages to discover messages from more, very special people. I just lost it over and over and over again :)

What girl doesn't enjoy the occasional dress-up lunch?

And finally, we brought birthday week to a close the next day at La Frontera Mexican Restaurant. The boys treated us to some pretty good comida estilo a la Mexicana. Mmm. Thanks, Doug and Alex!