BIRTHDAY!!

How do you like to spend your birthday? Day at Disneyland? Dinner out with friends? A fun party at home? Not me.

I like to be woken up by a big kick from inside my belly, a minute after my actualy birth time (2:42 AM,) then stay up emailing people and writing myself reminders of things I need to take care of at work that day. Then maybe I'll fall asleep for a two hours around 6 AM, then get up, get ready and go to work at 9 AM. Then once I get to work on my birthday, I like to spend the entire day walking back and forth from our office, to the tech booth in the worship center, to the green room, back to the tech booth, out to the lobby, over to the classrooms, back to the office, the worship center again, and keep repeating that for about 15 hours. And add a baby kicking all day to that. Sounds like fun, right?

Oh wait, I forgot to mention, it was all for a great cause! I helped put on an awesome concert featuring Riverside's own, The Trade and grammy nominated band, Leeland! Ok, so even though I had to work my butt off all day, it was totally worth it because it made it one of the best birthdays I've ever had! The Trade got the crowd pumped and excited and just totally rocked! Then Leeland came on... They were awesome! Although I was a little sad when the singer, Lee, said, "We've got two songs left..." because according to my set list there were three, and I knew the one they were cutting out was my favorite song, "Sound of Melodies." It was a great night of worship, even if they didn't do my favorite song. They took a bow and headed off the stage. A few minutes later, Lee returns to the stage alone, sits behind the keyboard and sings "Brighter Days," it was absolutely beautiful! When he finished, the rest of the band came out and finished the night with a nice little present, my favorite song! Seriously, could it have gotten any better?! I didn't really think so, but it did. I went to the green room to ask Scott's mom something and I had my camera with me because I was going to go wait in line in the lobby to get a picture with the band. As I was about to walk out to get in line, the bass player, Jake says to the band "Hey guys, let's take a picture with her before we go out there." I did kind of ask them before the show if we could take a picture after, but I figured I'd just get in line like everyone else. That totally made my day that he remembered, plus I didn't have to stand in line! They are some of the nicest, friendliest, laid back guys I've ever met! I wish they were here all the time!

Seriously, two days later, my feet and calves are still killing me. Leila's finally settled down after dancing to the music all day in my belly. And it was one of the best birthdays I've ever had! I love my job!