Storytelling Sunday: The one with all the birthdays...

Since today is my birthday (happy birthday me - sadly I am in bed as I seem to have caught a bug and was sick all night! Boo!) I spent some time this week going through the archives and reminiscing over birthdays past...

In our family we love birthdays and get really spoilt. My mom would place all our beautifully wrapped presents on a chair and then the whole family would come in and wake you up by singing 'Happy Birthday' (some more enthusiastically than others *cough* Alli *cough*) then you would open the mountain of presents.
We also always had really fun birthday parties and so here are some of the highlights:-

•  For my 8th birthday we went to Covent Garden - one of our favourite parts of London. My mom allowed me to invite four friends and so I took two sets of twins. The first set's mum was very cautious and they had emergency 10ps for the pay phone, the parents contact number's written down and clear instructions for what to do if they got lost. The second set had nothing. Guess who got lost? Emma from the second set. Looking back now my poor mother must have been terrified - luckily she had latched onto a group of French tourists and appeared a few shops later! 
• I wrote about it in my journal below and I particularly love some of my spellings - 'spaggeti' (spaghetti) 'mcandics' (mechanics) and of course 'samwthes' sandwiches. My sisters will probably comment that my spelling has not improved much since then...

• Also my 8th birthday was special as I got baptised by my dad - as we do when we are eight in my church. I remember being very excited and getting my hair crimped and getting all of our family and friends to sign my baptism book - another precious which I still have and a great record of the day. 

• For my 11th birthday I took a few friends to the 'Rock Island Diner' in London (do we see a pattern emerging here?) Luckily we didn't lose anybody. I remember that we got to sit in our booth and felt very grown up and that we could select songs on the juke box and so apparently we chose an Elvis song for my mom. Although I was always more of a Buddy Holly fan.

• For my 18th birthday we hired out a kiddy soft play area. I believe that we had to be slightly economical about the truth and when I tell this story I normally say it was 16th birthday, but having checked in my scrapbook I discovered it was my 18th. Well we're all big kids right? And it was a particularly cool one with a huge (and very scary) rainbow slide, a huge spiders web, an adult sized hamsters wheel and an enormous ball pond. Everyone loved it - despite perhaps initial skepticism. We ate at the ever classy Pizza Hut afterwards. I think I must have got an instax mini camera as the page is full of those cute little sticker pictures. Wish I still had it now - although I do recall the film was very pricey.

• Last, but certainly not least, memorable birthday was my 20th. In my second year on university I got to go on an exchange to Atlanta to attend The University of Georgia (UGA) and when I first arrived I didn't have a room mate. I had gone with another guy from course - Adie - and so I just used to hang around with him and his mates (all boys). I turned 20 shortly after arriving and was feeling a bit homesick and missing the rituals with my family so they promised me a big day out to cheer me up. We went to Six Flags a huge theme park like Alton Towers. I was very excited as I am quite a thrill seeker, however only once we arrived did Adie announce that he was scared of roller coasters and Alex announced he was scared of heights. Hmmm... So we ended up eating ice-cream and hot dogs, shelling out extra money to go on the go-karts and we went on all of the water rides.

• The second part of the surprise was a meal at this restaurant that they thought I would just love. It turned out to be Hooters. If you are not familiar it is a popular establishment with the male population as they serve great ribs, beer and the waitresses are all rather shapely and scantily clad in tacky, shiny orange hot pants and tight fitting t.shirts. Now as a tee total, hetrosexual, veggie this was not really my 'cup of tea' and as the boys insisted I take plenty of photos of them and the waitress' I began to suspect this 'treat' wasn't really just for me! I had a grilled cheese and a rootbeer and declined their kind invitation for a Hooters t.shirt. 

• The funniest part of all was that when I took the picture below I got a classic shot straight afterwards of my friend of the left turning to the waitress and saying 'don't I know you from somewhere?' Turns out that they had gone to primary school together. Bet when the teacher asked what she wanted to be when she grew up Hooter's girl was not top of her list! 

• It goes without saying that the very next day I made a more concerted effort to get to know the other girls in halls and started to enjoy girls nights out instead. Being one of the boys did seem to have its limitations! But I guess turning 20 in Hooters is a story to tell!

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Linking up with the wonderful Sian over at From High in the Sky pay her a visit to read more interesting stories
Don't forget to check out my new series starting tomorrow - Mini Memory Mondays with ideas for using journalling cards and tags in 8.5 by 11 and mini albums