New Years and Birthday Celebrations

On New Year's Eve, my friend Marci, who was my teammate in Poland, flew in from Texas to spend almost a week with me and our friend Paige. We spent Wednesday shopping, catching up, and getting ready for a couple of parties. Party #1 was a last minute party thrown by Paige and some of her other friends. We dropped by for about an hour before heading to party #2 at Alex and Kristel's. Alex and Kristel are in our church small group and they had wanted to throw a New Year's Party. Unfortunately, everyone else in our small group was out of town! But we still had a blast!


Birthday cake #2 at party #1...strawberry cupcakes.


A "Happy Birthday" tree at party #2, Alex and Kristel's.


Birthday cake #3 at party #2. Kristel ordered these fantastic chocolate cupcakes just for my birthday! How special did I feel?


Happy New Year with cupcakes!


Marci Wii bowling. Look at that form!


Happy Birthday to me! Ok, ok, and Happy New Year to everyone else.


Alex and Kristel, showing us gringos how to dance.

Needless to say, Wednesday was a late night. So on Thursday we slept in and took the morning easy and then we embarked on the adventure of teaching Marci how to play Settlers of Catan. She picked it up pretty quickly and was even game for learning how to play the next version, Cities and Knights. Shannon had played about two years ago but not since, so we attempted to play a few games, learning as we went. It was quite fun, especially since I won! But it was my birthday, so I think I was entitled to win!


Look at all those cities and knights!

Friday I had to return to work, and Marci hung out with Paige over the weekend while Shannon and I went to Asheville. On Monday she hung out with me at work and then we played a couple of final games of Cities and Knights (Shannon won one!) that evening before she left on Tuesday. Overall, I'd rate the visit as excellent. It's always good to see friends who you've known for a long time, or who knew you when you were in the previous stage of life than you are now. I've known Marci for almost five years now, and I'm grateful for every one of them and pray for many more to come!


Marci and I on New Years, all dolled up.