My 18th Birthday

I am now 18!!  And my dearest family made the day oh so special for me!

The morning started out as pretty much every birthday morning - I opened up gifts before doing much else!  They included new DVDs (Courageous - fantastic movie, Facing the Giants, and Love Finds a Home), the two "One Yard Wonder" books (on sewing), and a gift card to Joann Fabrics!  Soon after that we were off to spend the day at Duluth!

Sadly, it was rather foggy and only in the 40's, but nothing can burst birthday spirits! ;)

A ship obligingly was passing through the channel soon after we arrived, so we got a good view of that right away.



Soon after that we went to Famous Dave's for lunch, and then to Vertical Endeavors to rock climb!  Vertical Endeavor turned out to be a really nice place where we could hook up ourselves, so it made for easy moving from place to place!  The climbing went well until after a few up and downs, then our arms were getting so worn that even the easy ones we used to breeze through were very hard!  But it was such fun (way high up there! :D), a good work out, and I have been feeling it in my arms for day! :-)

The rest of our time was spent in shopping Duluth and enjoying the lake.  But the bad weather soon drove us into Caribou for my free birthday coffee!

The rest of the evening was spent quietly at home watching Love Finds a Home; over all my birthday was so wonderful and special!  But the celebrating wasn't over...

Two days later I had another wonderful celebration with my dear girlfriends!

Of course, some Pinterest inspired decorations.

Menu:

Chicken Wraps

Rainbow fruit kabobs

chips and pickles

cupcakes and ice cream

I love planning the decorations and food, but I'm not very good at choosing creative activities that will last the whole party.  But Mom stepped in to help with that, and she came up with some very fun games.  It started with a photo scavenger hunt where we go around doing crazy and fun activities and games - like in the picture above, where we have to pass the hat not using our hands, or how about a homesteading game where we carry an egg on a spoon in our mouth, shoot a chicken (picture of chicken on can), pluck the chicken (feathered balloon) and kiss one of our chickens :) - and take a picture of each activity.  We also made fabric flowers for hair, bag, or to be used in any other stylish way.

Thank you girls for coming and making my day special!

Blessings, Amber