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.

My spring break was last week and I have to say that it was the most busy, nontraditional break that I’ve ever had. For starters, it’s been tradition since I believe my freshman year of high school to watch all of the Lord of the Rings movies over spring break. I had every intention of doing that this year as well until other things popped up. So I do regret that I broke tradition, but in my own defense I did watch them about a month earlier when I introduced them to my roomie, so I still got my LOTR fix.

My campus ministry that I’m involved with – Impact – planned a spring break trip to St. Louis, conveniently where I am from, to work on one of the college campuses there with another church to plant a new non-denominational campus ministry. We really just did groundwork, talking to get to know students and the campus in general which we relayed to those that will be directly involved to let them know the interests/needs of the campus and students. It was a really cool experience and I got a lot out of it.

Of course, that sucked up the majority of my break. I offered my house as a host home so the girls stayed at my house. It was fun and they got to meet Tabor, who is of course, my baby. <3

The weekend before and after Impact came I spent with friends and family and did some much needed shopping. We celebrated my brother turning 24 (geez, that makes me feel old…), celebrated my three year anniversary with Andrew, watched old Disney movies with friends and had a sleepover (that took me back to when I was about twelve and did that ALL the time), and of course shopped – which is always a blessing and a curse. I don’t have a car and there’s nothing really in my budget nearby the dorms at school, so I haven’t gotten new clothes/shoes since…. last September. O.O My wardrobe really needed an upgrade. I didn’t find a lot of stuff, but I did get some new cute shoes which were all on sale! I love shoes.

For me and Andrew’s three year anniversary (sometimes I can’t wrap my head around the fact that we’ve been together that long) we planned to hit four different restaurants and only order dessert. (Best idea we’ve had yet.) I wore a new dress and Andrew wore a black dress shirt with slacks. He looked handsome. :love: Our first restaurant was Buffalo Wild Wings, where we were completely overdressed since it’s just a sports bar, haha, but it was fun. We ordered their dessert nachos: a crispy nacho type chip sprinkled with cinnamon, topped with four scoops of vanilla ice cream, and drizzled in fudge and caramel. It’s supposed to feed six people….but it nicely fed me and Andrew.

Our second restaurant we went to was Houlihan’s, where we ordered their S’mores chocolate fondue. It comes with iced graham crackers and strawberries. After eating that, we were both pretty full, so we thought we’d take a break and rent a movie. After the movie (Argo – fantastic and would totally recommend it) we decided we were still too full to go anywhere else. So it was just the two restaurants, but it was a lovely date. <3

I had discussed being really concerned about finding a job for the summer and I have good news! I got a job at a doctor’s office archiving old medical records and other organizational stuffs! I’m very excited as it pays well and I will most likely work between 30-40 hours a week, which is much needed! Ahh, I am just very blessed!

In other news, baseball season has started!!!!! That means that I would preferably spend most of my time plopped in front of the TV watching the STL Cardinals dominate……. but oh wait, I’m not in St. Louis so they don’t always televise the games. -.- Bah, it’s okay though. I just proudly wear my STL baseball hat around campus. I also may have just bought a very large (3×5 foot) Cardinals flag that I’m going to hang in my dorm room… haha, hope my roomie doesn’t mind. Then again, she had to deal with me post-season of last year.

You can take the girl out of the city, but can’t take the city out of the girl, right?