This is the first post I am writing as a nineteen-year-old. It’s so weird knowing that this is my last year of being a teenager. What is that??? What is growing up???

My birthday was on Sunday, and normally a hint that it’s coming up, but this year it kind of snuck up on me. I didn’t really realize my birthday was coming up until about a day and a half before, haha. Normally, my birthdays are always a bit of a drag, so I almost dread each year. Like last year, for my eighteenth birthday, I worked.

But this year was really fun! Kansas City has a really great World War I Museum that me and Andrew went to Saturday morning. We were a bit skeptical of the weather, but it ended up turning out to be really nice! We climbed to the top of the Liberty Memorial (217 feet tall) and looked out over Kansas City. It was gorgeous! A bit windy, but it was great!

The World War I museum was absolutely fantastic. When you walk into the museum, you walk over a field of poppies (which do happen to be my favorite flower), and each poppy represents 1,000 soldiers that died. They showed a short little movie to get your mind into the context of the war and then you continued on into the actual museum. There was a timeline of each specific event that happened in the war and we spent a lot of time just reading that. There were little facts scattered throughout, too, which were really interesting. One that really caught my eye was something along the lines of “Children in Germany knew when they had just had a victory because they would have a holiday. The longer the holiday, the greater the victory.”

Being the nerds that we are, we really enjoyed it. It was sad, but it also made me really thankful for everything that I have: my family, my friends, my opportunity at higher education, my boyfriend, even history dates themselves. Very blessed and very grateful.

After that, we went to a local BBQ restaurant that I hadn’t been to before but Kansas City is apparently famous for. It was good, but I’m also not a huge fan of BBQ, so it was just good. Afterwards Andrew had to go to work and I spent the rest of my afternoon watching the Cardinals play on TV. I was so happy that it was on because Kansas City only plays Royals games…. which I mean makes sense…. but… STILL.

Andrew waited until midnight on Saturday night, when it “officially” became April 7th to give me his present. He had been dropping little hints here and there and I thought that I had figured out what he got me, but he still totally surprised me! I thought that he had got me an E-reader, which I have been wanting for a while but just haven’t justified spending $70+ on one. And I was partially right. He got me a Kindle Fire HD 7″. Like whaaaat. I really could not believe that he had spent that much on me – I almost felt bad accepting it. He rationalized though that it was two presents in one – my anniversary and birthday present. He’s too good to me. Now I have to think of something really good for his birthday. It’s gorgeous, and I really want to name it, but I haven’t thought of a good one yet. Suggestions?

Sunday was my actual birthday, so after Church, Andrew and I went out again at another local restaurant. We have a friend that just raves about their Mac ‘n Cheese. We have other people who attested that their Mac ‘n Cheese is very delicious and is what they’re famous for. So I ordered their Mac ‘n Cheese! It was very good, but it didn’t really live up to the very high expectations for it. It was a fun restaurant though and I’m sure we’ll go back again.

Andrew headed off to work again and I took a really long nap. I think three hours… but it was so needed. My spring break was really exhausting and I didn’t have a lot of time to catch up on sleep the week before, so it was a good birthday nap for me! My roomie had gone home for the weekend, so when she got back I was finally waking up around 5:30PM. Haha, what a bum I am. Then we watched Mulan.

Aaaand that is how I celebrated turning nineteen.