Hello sweet family and friends! As you may know, this past Saturday, October 24, was my 23rd birthday. Wow, that sounds older and older every time I say it. (All you people older than me, please stop rolling your eyes.) All I'm saying is that this birthday is making me realize a little more than usual that ... I'm about grown up. Yikes! That's a scary thought!! ;)
Even though I couldn't be at home with my family and close friends, I had plenty of people here helping my celebrate my special day. It turned out to be a great day, too!
First off, I woke up Saturday morning to "Birthday Breakfast" with my wonderful host family. The Mauers really are a special family, and I am so blessed to be in their home. When I came up the stairs that morning, I found that they decorated the kitchen with a "Happy Birthday" banner (in English!) and had my place at the table set up with candles and a birthday gift. They all gave me hugs and wished me a happy birthday individually. My gift turned out to be a coffee mug like one of theirs that I had admired. It has a simplified drawing of the cathedral in Cologne and also bears one of the "Ten Laws of Cologne", which are not really laws at all, but wise sayings. Mine says, "Et es wie et es." which means "It is what it is." Always good advice to remember. Here's a pic of me at the table and one of that also has three of the boys and Thomas.
Around 11am, six of my friends from classmates came out to my house and we all went out to a ropes course nearby where I live. Suren came too! :) Those of you who know how adventurous I am (which is not at all, typically) would be quite proud of me for climbing up in trees to platforms set at 15 meters above the ground, jumping off on zip-lines and climbing across rope and log ladders. We had sooo much fun! Here are a few pictures of us at the course to give you an idea of what it was like.
Some of the pieces of the courses. Crawling through the green nets
wasn't too bad, but the rock wall turned out to be a little challenging ...
Go Megan!
Some of the challenges took a little teamwork!
And if you think that's all the birthday celebration we could possibly fit into one day, you are wrong! My classmates planned a surprise dinner at a great Italian restaurant in Bonn called Vapiano. The food was so good and my friends were so kind to treat me to dinner and birthday dessert. The boys even bought me flowers! :)
I enjoyed every bite!
The whole gang at Vapiano.
My beautiful bouquet from "my boys."
It was a great day, and I thank everyone who made it so special! :)
