30 Days to Thirty

It's Kelly's birthday today (Happy Birthday, Kelly!).  More precisely, it is her 30th birthday today. 

Since she refused to have a big party for such a monumental year mark, we decided to force her to have 30 small parties.  More precisely, we gave her a present/surprise every day for 30 days leading up to her 30th birthday.

It began with a bang when I kidnapped her and took her to Alabama and Mississippi (2 of the states she had left to cross off on her "Visit every state before I'm 30" list). 

(Genuine surprise face when I told her we weren't really going to Charlottesville for the night, haha!)

Since then the surprises have only gotten bigger: Vegan breakfast sandwiches, a DI childrens' book rewritten in her honor, The Guardian, ukulele music, dress patterns and material, a Vegan bakery run, a special song/dance performance accompanied by its own trailer, a BBQ and four-wheeler rides through the Utah mountainside, a fancy jumprope, an "I Heart the Brothers K" t-shirt, a dainty scarf, to-die-for chocolate chip cookies, a puzzle of a covered bridge, Win Lose or Draw, a beautiful dish from Jordan, a gelato trip, a Cafe Rio run, 4 of the most awesome music mixes ever created, and tons of people popping up throughout the month just to tell her they loved her...she really scored this year on presents.

Some of my favorite surprises from the whole month:  

A Night at the Drum Circle

The Goo-Goo Dolls Concert (with Parachute AND Michelle Branch, what what!)

 

A Weekend Getaway to Amish Country (where we toured three (3!) pretzel factories, a canning factory, and a chocolate factory all in one day)

(I took this picture from the moving car window, and I am therefore proud of it)

Graffiti Night

(We took some night shots to look extra rebellious)

English (my joy apparently has a skin disease, don't worry it's not contagious)

Spanish

French

Swahili

(Don't look into my eyes for too long in this picture, I think I was possessed by the guy in the painting from Ghostbusters II)

The Korean Drama Family Birthday Party (by far the best thing we did for her)

We had apples (sliced Korean style) as appetizers.

And stir fry and Mi goreng for dinner (I'm never going back to Ramon after trying Mi goreng)

(Please pardon the way we are eating dinner, we were trying to stay true to the Korean drama and not have manners.  Where is Jeon Jin Ho to teach us how to be a lady?)

And Korean cookies for dessert.

Then we played Korean games, where Maria was unbeatable (is she secretly half Korean?).

(Grandpa playing "Guess the Korean Animal")

Kelly used her Korean mind powers to levitate things in the air.

After dinner and games, we all cried in Korean.

And sat according to our Korean color coordination groups.

Overall, we had some sweet Korean moments.

And some difficult Korean moments.

(Don't look too long into the boy in the green shirt's eyes, I think you know why)

And do you know after all that hard work, after all the planning, all the logistics, all the organizing, all the secrets and all the surprises from the whole month of birthday surprises, do you know what Kelly's favorite day was?

The day I gave her a bag of cherries.

Now we know, if you want to make Kelly happy, keep it simple.