A Quarter of a Century...Ah!

To be honest, I don't really like birthdays. In recent years they have become more of a time of reflection. Sometimes life turns out differently than you planned it would when you were younger. Also, it is all hyped up to be your big day and it really isn't all that exciting. So, that's how my day started off. Thankfully it ended up being one of the best birthdays in a while.

Our family doesn't do anything big for birthdays, but one of the traditions is that the birthday person gets to pick somewhere to go out to eat as a family and we get to bring one friend. This year I picked Texas Roadhouse and of course the friend I picked was Travis.

After dinner Travis and I went back to the house while the rest of the family stopped to pick up some groceries. When we got there, we realized that we were locked out. We explored our back yard. Here are some pictures.

Since it was my birthday and I got to do whatever I wanted, I talked Travis into helping me scrapbook some. He was a pretty good sport. He was working on something else and "helping" me at the same time. The boys also played some with their marshmallow guns. Here is the result.

We ate my cake and opened my presents. I had the coolest cake this year! I am not a fan of regular cake, so I got a dip-n-dots cake! Mom and dad also got me a cookie cake. I felt pretty special! I got some pretty awesome presents. Travis got me a long necklace, some clothes that we picked out the day before from Express, my favorite store, some books, and he made this memory box with pictures of us. Mom got me some dress pants, dad got me some games for my classroom, Nathan got me a tripod, and Andrew got me stuff to pamper myself.

Since my birthday is New Year's Eve, there are always a ton of fireworks, but this year I wanted to do some. Travis, Nathan and I went to the store and bought some cheap ones to shoot off. We made sure not to get bottle rockets. :) We shot off some fire works and then did the sparklers, my favorite. Then someone had the idea to spell my name. So, we figured out how to do it on my camera and got some pictures.

So, this goes down as one of my favorite birthdays!