Party Week

For Valentine's Day, our apartment threw a party in which everyone had to dress up with someone else and be either a famous couple of just something that went together. Some of the outfits included all the colors of the rainbow, Gandhi and the Indian flag, the three blind mice (pictured below), and then my roommate, Jess, and I dressed up as Pocahontas and John Smith (obviously the Disney couple haha). Jess used mascara to create a beard and took tin foil and made a helmet. Then I just braided my hair and wrapped a shawl around me. Simple, but a lot of fun! (Jess is doing her best "man pose" below!)   

Here is Jamie, Celiz and Becky dressed up as the Three Blind Mice! Gotta love those girls! =) 

And oh my goodness, we had SSSOOOO much food! We made chocolate chip pancakes, eggs, fruit salad, peanut butter ball dessert, orange peel candies, homemade syrup (which I proudly made haha), and I can not remember the rest, but that probably isn't half of it! We all had sugar overloads at the end of the night!

The next morning, all the girls and Jake had 'secretly' stolen the Happy Birthday sign that my Aunt Jennifer had sent me and hung it up on the balcony door with a birthday notes taped to the window. All their kind words were so nice and it really was a great way to start off the day. I knew it would be hard turning 21 in a another country with none of my family, but I really do consider these girls my family here. Without getting too sentimental, it just was so extremely nice of all of them! =) 

At the end of the day, we had a small party in which everyone gave me something small that reminded them of me (i.e. a green pen), and again it really was more than I was expecting. Below, I am opening a present from 'the three blind mice' which was a beautiful wooden carved box with a kit-kat bar inside!

And of course it wouldn't be a birthday if there wasn't food! In Indian culture, when it is your birthday you usually get gifts for everyone else. However, they wouldn't let me do that. So instead, I made everyone enchiladas. They didn't turn out like ones I make at home, but they turned out pretty good. Our director Kirk got the last bit of the chicken one so he just ate out of the pan. (He is seriously the funniest man I have ever met, with a great heart for God!) 

My blog post wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention something about Thursday night... On my first day in India when my luggage was lost, Kandyce took me shopping and while we were out, she told me that her biggest dream was to one day drive an auto in India. (On thursday night, we had a party for her and Jon who are leaving after this weekend and we were to bring a gift.) To make a very long story as short as possible, I met a really nice autodrive about an hour before the party and he said that she could drive his. So after the party started, Hannah and I got everyone downstairs (again, long story short!) and Kandyce got to drive an auto! She was super excited! I just felt I needed to add that because it was great! 

Well, now I am 21 and I am in INDIA! It still feels so surreal at times that I am even here! I love it though and wouldn't trade this for anything! I miss my family and friends like crazy, but there is so much I love here and am so grateful that God had provided in so many ways!  


(In the next day or 2 I will post about the weekend trip to Chennai!)