Happy Spontaneous Birthday to Me!

It was a Thursday. The weather was nice--sunny, but slightly windy, and only heating up to about 80 at the hottest. Angel had the day off work, and there were no pressing engagements to interfere with whatever we decided to do that day.

We suddenly decided to celebrate my birthday!

My birthday isn't till the latter half of July. You might have noticed that we're spending the latter half of July this year doing something like moving to China. Because of our upcoming move and therefore the fact that actual presents like new dresses weren't really a possibility, I'd decided a while back that I really wanted to go to Michigan's Adventure, a local amusement/waterpark, for my birthday.

Life being as crazy as it is, we declared the most recent convenient day my "birthday" and had a blast.

Our strategy paid off. It was a weekday, and not very hot, which meant that the waterpark especially was abandoned, and lines for all the rides were short. My goal in going to any amusement park is to ride as many rides as humanly possible: we did 15 different rides. However, that number is lower than in might have been, because we rode our favorites more than once, and, notably, Angel rode the bumper cars 12 times (I only rode them 9 times before I was tired of getting bumped).

He was so, so, so happy on the bumper cars.

Second time ever trying Dippin' Dots. Apparently weird chewy ice cream fascinates me...

I accomplished something impressive, too. Using a combination tactic of long-sleeved swimwear plus sunscreen on any skin that was exposed, I successfully completed an entire day at the waterpark with only a 1''x4'' patch of sunburn on the back of my neck to show for it.

The day ended with take-out Panda Express eaten on some empty bleachers at a little softball field we found on the way home. It was an awesome 23rd birthday celebration, though I won't actually claim that age until my actual birthday comes. I mean, why get older before we have to?

I think fortune cookies taste bad, but I am highly amused by the fortunes inside them. So we have a system: I open both cookies to find out the fortunes and Angel eats both cookies. Too bad Panda Express doesn't have the "learn Chinese" feature on their fortune cookies, I couldn't have my usual fortune cookie rant about how faulty the translations/pronunciations guides are on those...

As far as reflections on growing up go, I'm not sure how appropriate those are given that my dream for celebrating my 23rd birthday was riding waterslides and roller coasters. However, as this is my only birthday blog post, I'll definitely say that looking back to last year, especially when I wrote my 22 while 22 list...I definitely did not expect the year that I've had. This time last year Angel and I were about to leave on one last trip to Malaysia before getting settled down in America for good. If things had gone as planned I'd be working in a salon right now and Angel would be nearly done with his Master's degree...all I can say when I think about those plans is that this, what we're actually doing, is so, so much better for us. Last year, I wasn't excited when I thought about my own life--this year I am. I'd say that's an improvement.

p.s. Umm, did you see how much I traveled this year on that 22 While 22 post? Craziness. I went a little overboard. Clearly, when I wrote the "At least 5 overnight trips" goal I did not expect the crazy year I've had...like my parents returning to visit the USA for a couple months, that was a surprise! In addition to all the trips already recorded, I'm going away at least once more before my birthday. Some people are used to traveling a lot but that was a bit excessive for me!