Beyond the Stars: BIRTHDAY!!

Yesterday…was my BIRTHDAY!! And yes, it was absolutely fabulous. It was all due to those around me. If it were up to me, I probably would have done laundry yesterday morning, and walked and ate some indian food for lunch or something. Instead, everyone decided to make it pretty much the most memorable birthday of my life.

I couldn't sleep the night before. First off, I went to bed way late, knowing that I had to wake up super early, and then I couldn't sleep (I was like a child before Christmas). Once I woke up, I'll admit the first thing I did was open the package from my parents. They said I had to wait until my birthday to open it. Well, I did, and I didn't wait any longer. I got from them a ginormous bag of taffy, some lotion and lip gloss, a CD, a book, and of course, some cards. I loved it! It was def. a great way to start off the day! I was all smiles :) Then, I got ready, and after that, I walked out to the main room and was on my way to the kitchen. Megan had already been up and ready for the day (she left before 6...crazy nurse schedules!), but I found on the table 2 gourmet cupcakes, with candles in them, a lighter sitting next to it, instructions to light the candles, and to press play on the voice recorder that was also sitting next to the cupcakes. A perfect little birthday message from Megan played. Again, another perfect way to make my day :) It wasn't even 7am yet and I was certain that I was having the best day ever.

My friend Emily offered to take me on a day trip for my birthday wherever I wanted to go. I chose to go to Hershey, PA. It was close enough to Baltimore that it wouldn’t be too bad to drive to, but at the same time, far enough away that it would actually feel like a trip. Emily picked me up around 7:30, and then we went to pick up Sam. I had to take my motion-sickness meds so that I wouldn’t risk having an awful day in that sense, so most of the day I was kind of out of it. It was great. The drive to Hershey from Bmore was about an hour and a half.

Emily gave me a ribbon to pin to my shirt that said “It’s my b-day!” so that everyone would know. I proudly wore it. I possibly wouldn’t have if it wasn’t hot pink. Again, another one of the best parts of the day.

We got to Hershey and went to Chocolate World! When we were standing outside there, Emily and Sam asked me if I could smell the chocolate. It took me three deep breaths to smell the chocolate! So, it’s really not as overwhelming as everyone says that it is, but it still smells nice : ) We decided what attractions we wanted to do for the day, and bought our tickets.

The first attraction we did was “Create Your Own Candy Bar”. We got to go in to a chocolate bar assembly line basically, choose our chocolate base, some candy fillings, and design the wrapper. It cost fifteen bucks. It’ll for sure be the most expensive chocolate bar of my life, but hopefully it’ll be the best darn chocolate bar of my life because I got to pick what was in it. I did it all milk chocolate. Inside I put toffee, almonds, and raspberries. I haven’t tasted it yet. As of right now, it’s still in the packaging. I’ll have to save it for a day when I haven’t had so many sweet things to eat. The guy said that the fresh chocolate taste will last for about a week. So I have a week to eat it.

We then went on a little ride/video thing that told us about some history of Hershey. It was free. Mostly we just made fun of the singing cows the whole time and took pics. We’re so immature, I don’t know what’s wrong with us. There were singing cows. It was like an awful “It’s a Small World” or something. Minus the repetitiveness.

Then we had scheduled a trolley tour of the city of Hershey. It cost twelve bucks I think. It was soooo worth it! The tour guides were amazing. It was like a show they put on in the trolley (they were actors, not just plain old tour guides). On the tour, we got to see the world’s largest chocolate factory, Mr. Hershey’s home, Hotel Hershey, Hershey Gardens, etc. The tour lasted about an hour. It was probably my favorite part of Chocolate World.

We then roamed the gift shop for a while. I bought some twizzlers that are a foot and a half long. I thought they were cool.

We went to lunch after to Red Robin. I thought it was hilarious because we ended up ordering a chicken sandwich, turkey burger, and a BOCA burger. I had the turkey burger. Who goes to a burger place and doesn’t order a real burger!? We do apparently. Anyway, I DID get sung to, and I got an ice cream sundae from it. Emily helped me eat it. She ate it with a fork even. It was seriously the best lunch ever. And then. Sam paid for me. And she INSISTED on it. People really made it the best birthday for me, ever.

We then went outlet shopping! I found some super good deals. I got some sunglasses, and a dress. Most places were having really good sales due to the holiday weekend. It was pretty crowded and kind of hot, but it was seriously so much fun! I’m glad that we went there! Sam and Emily were fun to go shopping with… ;)

At this point, we had to drive back to Baltimore. We stopped by a gas station to get something to drink. I bought a 3ft long gummy snake for us to eat in the car on the way back as well. It was gone by the time we were back to Baltimore.

For the evening, I had planned with a bunch of the people in the ward a dinner at the Broadway Diner. We had planned to meet there at 7. The Broadway Diner was featured on the food network once. You can find the link at http://www.broadwaydiner1.com/. A lot of people in the ward like to go out to eat there, and I had heard good things about it, so I planned to have a birthday celebration there! I invited all my friends in Baltimore to the dinner, and whoever could make it out on a Sat night came. I even invited out the Elders to come have dinner with us. I ordered some really fancy food. I got stuffed chicken. Which is chicken stuffed with crab meat. It was super delicious. I’m so glad that I got it! Then, for dessert, I got red velvet cheesecake. Yeah. Definitely a birthday indulgence. I have leftovers in the fridge of everything. I’m super excited. The best part: I got to share the evening with friends! My friends even coordinated w/ on another and brought candles and a lighter to the diner so that I could have a candle to blow out on my cake! It was so cute! And then. They paid for me. Which made me feel super guilty because I invited the missionaries and I ordered stuff with crab in it. But this time I had a whole table of people who had supposedly been planning this against me on facebook for a whole week, so I wasn’t paying. They really had been planning it against me all week, too. I really do have the best friends here!

Great birthday? Yeah, I’d say so! And to top it off, every single one of my siblings, and of course, my parents, called me. Thanks guys!! I was scared you would all forget. Not like you would forget, and I don’t know which one of you actually would, but I’m glad that none of you actually did :)

Adding pictures via bloggers takes forever and a day, so that’s why this post has taken so long to actually get up. Here are the pictures from the day though: