Birthday Week!

Happy Birthday Week! Well, it's officially over actually. But here's a happy birthday shout-out to Paul, Megan, and Bethany! Birthday Week started back in 2009 when Paul and I, who both have birthdays on the 12th, decided to celebrate our birthdays with Bethany and Megs, whose birthday is on the 13th. What started as one day celebration turned into a week-long list of activities and the beginning of a beautiful friendship. :)



My birthday here was really laid back. I actually forgot about it and had invited some youth from my church to my house for dinner. But, Lisa reminded me the night before that maybe I wanted to have a special dinner with the Laffoons on my birthday. ha. Of course. So I rescheduled with my friends for later on.

Here's Charlie welcoming me to the Laffoons for my birthday dinner: enchiladas!

Luckily, Anna Marie had gone to the post office that day and found a letter for me.
It was my Hogwart's Acceptance Letter...I was pretty excited. :)

And then there was Jeremiah just being his usual cute self.

The kids made a sign for me. It was really cute.

Yay! Cheers for year 27!

27 seven candles looks really old when once they are on the cake. :(

Our big news from the past month was that Itunes is letting Malawi buy things now, so the Laffoons bought me a movie off Itunes. It was so nice of them.

However, the highlight of the night was Anna Marie.

She made me a 9 minute video montage of different Harry Potter characters...but the kicker is that she dressed up as each one of them! And they were GREAT costumes! In fact, I didn't recognize her as "Harry" when it first came up. It was incredible! I wish I had good enough internet to post it up here. She gives these hilarious responses as each character is interviewed about this last Harry Potter movie. 

It was perfect.

Then, later on in the week, we had a really cold day. It was actually really fun because Mzuzu was covered in a cloud most of the day. Here is what my backyard looked like:

It did make the spider webs look really cool though. I have SEVERAL of those around the outside of my house.

The foggy weather in the middle of winter made for a really cold day. And it was a wet cold. So, I built a fire and we huddled next to the space heaters. We did most of our school day by the fireplace. 

Then, my two new students were here on Friday. They brought me a present!! How sweet is that?! They gave me two little vases with artificial flowers in them. We played scrabble and just had the best time! They really opened up and were joking around with me. The oldest girl even wrote her story on "Why You Should Stay in Mzuzu." :) 

There names are Saba and Sheroze.

Friday night, I had the youth from my church over. It was the 3 pastor's kids and a girl visiting from Germany. We had such a wonderful time! I made mexican and 2 of them had never had it before, but they loved it. I had forgotten though how much I miss group fellowship with my peers. I really enjoyed spending time with them.

And of course, Anna Marie came over for our weekly movie/tv fest/sleepover. And they are always full of silliness, me saying really stupid/embarrassing things, giggling, and Chuck.

Gosh, I'm gonna miss that when I go.

The next morning, I went to a prison ministry fundraiser and had coffee and cake with some friends. I even met a young girl from Michigan who is going to join Anna Marie and I this Friday night for our sillyfest. 

But, later that night, one of the best things about the week happened. I got to watch Dustin, one of my very good friends, get married on live video feed!! I found out a few hours before it happened, that they were going to do a live stream online. Its a miracle my internet worked and actually let me stream the video. Afterwards, I got to see Bethany, Setnick, and even the bride and groom got to yell up at camera at me. It was the perfect end to birthday week.

I actually wrote a post a while ago about how I was really bummed that I was going to be missing this big event back home. Well, his wedding was the event, and God worked it out so that I didn't miss it!
-fistbumpwithGod-

It's kind of hard to believe my next birthday will be in America. 

-sigh-

Here's my last picture of Birthday Week 2011!
Thanks for all the birthday wishes!