Happy Birthday to ME!

I know it's my birthday, but this is also my journal, so I'm posting. So there. For my birthday, all I am asking is for is this:

Memories:
1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, write anything you remember!

I just wanted to write about some of my most memorable birthdays. This is for posterity, so you can skim it if you want. It's quite a bit of heritage.

I think my most memorable experiences at most of my birthdays was that my dad would take me to breakfast for a daddy-daughter date and my mom would either make my favorite dinner, or we'd go out to dinner and I got to choose where we went. It was usually either Western Sizzlin, King's Table, or Fargos Pizza. Breakfast was always somewhere sit down. Which was fine with my dad bc all the other kids wanted to go to McDonald's and I always wanted to go to IHOP, Villiage Inn, Cracker Barrel, or Denny's. I love to eat out. Let's be honest.

Then, of course, every 7 years my birthday was on Thanksgiving, so I got a candle in the turkey and pies. Good one. Very clever. I wasn't even a huge fan of pies, but it was fun having the whole family and some dear friends there for the dual event. I got to play football in morning, come home for the parade, eat some good food, watch football, then usually go to the Meadowland Church Building to play volleyball or basketball in the evening with a ton of kids in our Stake and family. There's more than one reason why Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.

I remember when I was younger I had a best friend Jimmy Christensen who happened to have a birthday 4 days earlier. Our moms were in the hospital together when they had us and apparently we were next to each other in the nursery and everything. At church we would play together even as babies. We were linked. I remember having two separate birthday cakes, separate gifts, but we did everything else the same. He moved my second grade year and I was devastated. We even tried to hide out for a loooong time, then tried running away together. We still kept in tough throughout the years, but lost touch in High School. THEN, the third day, or so of college we were sleeping out to get the best student football tickets and I hear a "Monique!" And then I saw him. I ran to him yelling, "Jimmy!!!" And we totally embarrassed ourselves. :) Remember? We are connected.

Skate City. Need I say more? I remember more than one birthday being held at Skate city and even remember seeing some friends who happened to just be skating the day I was having my party and I felt bad for not inviting them, so my mom said they can join in the fun.

I remember quite a few birthdays at my home during middle school where I had a swim party with our hot tub. Many times it would be snowing and we would spend our time daring each other to do crazy things in the snow and then run back and jump in the hot tub. I wonder how many of my friends were sick the next day?

One year my parents were gone for my birthday, so I had a party at my house while they were gone. It was pretty large. Okay massive, and people from four different high schools showed up and then the next day my parents' friend came to check on my brother and I, saw the mess, and told my parents the house was a wreck, but when my parents stepped through the door two days later, the house was spotless... thanks to some friends who helped clean and a pretty cool brother who even covered for me. Do I want teenagers?

The kidnapping surprise party!! Oh how can I ever forget this one! I have a friend, Tom Paul, who also has a b-day around mine and we were both kidnapped together early one Saturday morning and taken around the city blindfolded until we were dropped off together a couple of times, then picked up again, and finally taken to his house to a surprise party. It was so fun! I had never had a surprise party before, so I relished in my "feeling especially special" day with a great friend. I LOVE sharing birthdays with friends! I also LOVE surprises!

I remember my boyfriend at the time, Mark Gardner, did this awesome video scavenger hunt for me which was seriously cool. I was even video taped during the excursion by another friend and was surprised by him at the end. It was pretty thoughtful. He is still a good friend with an even more amazing wife and the funny thing is, I first got to know my husband better at one of Mark's birthday parties in college. (Mark and I were long over by then, but still friends.) How creative, huh? I hope I still have it somewhere...

One year (actually my parents were gone for this one too) my friends got me a birthday cake with someone else's name X'ed out on it and written next to it (in what I think was a Sharpie) was my name. It was a Barbie cake and they knew how much I hated Barbies growing up, so they of course got me a Barbie cake and a Barbie for my birthday. (I don't remember how they got it, but I want to think that it was a mistake cake and not taken from a girl's B-day party. Next thing I know I am going to have a comment on my blog about how my friends ruined her B-day bc they stole her cake...) Anyway. Oh, and I do need to mention that they also had collected the cards that I gave to THEM during the year, crossed out their names and put mine in and switched a few words around. :) It was pretty funny. Then we went out to dinner and hiked up a canyon in Colorado Springs where we ended up overlooking the entire city and throwing my Barbie off a cliff at 3am. Fun sober stuff. They knew I didn't drink, so they brought Martinelli's and fun Sobe drinks to try out. Funny thing was that one of the guys names was Jimmy, but not the same Jimmy as growing up. It was in Nov, but I don't remember being that cold. . .

And of course my birthday during my honeymoon. That was great because B took me to a Steak House in Park City and we were married. I remember that I kept telling him that we were married during the dinner. "Guess what? We are married!!" "So I got married three days ago." "Hey, you are now my husband." As if he didn't know, but I guess it hadn't hit me yet. We even had a really cool DJ there that sang a song to us and we got to dance to it alone on the dance floor while the whole restaurant watched and cheered when the song was over. Not to mention that it was snowing really hard by the time we were done and were lucky enough to follow a snow plow to our condo, but still got stuck twice and even had to have someone come and help.

I remember one birthday when B took me to Red Lobster (B said we could go there once a year, for my birthday!) The waiter came out with two dishes. One a Cajun Chicken Alfredo and the other a gargantuan plate of crab with extra sides. The waiter stutter stepped a moment and switched the meals thinking B had the Ginormous plate, but I said, "Oh no. That one is mine. Aaaaall mine."

So all in all I have had special days in my life that I can call my birthdays, but the really special days are those spent with as many family and friends I can have under one roof at the same time. Now that's a party!