The 15 days of Birthday...

Yes, I realize that my birthday was a long time ago ... But most of my celebrating just happened this past weekend! How's that for true Haitian style? Starting this August, the base has tried to celebrate the month's worth of birthdays with a special evening of cake, games, and a movie. I was too tired to stay for the showing of "The Incredibles" (and I've already seen it ...), but I think that even MORE than that, I was too eager to get back to my apartment to open my birthday packages that had JUST arrived after dinner that night! 15 days late, but just in time.


This lovely Bavarian Cream Cake earned the title: The Hurricane Mudslide Cake. Lindsay spent several hours of one of our rainy post-hurricane days making this amazing cake for me to enjoy on my birthday. But for whatever reasons, the cake was a flop. Shelly, our local cake-expert, was even helping her with it and she could NOT figure out what went wrong! So we are just blaming it on Hanna. She has a lot of things on her record down here in St. Marc ...


Cake number two - for our September birthdays celebration this past Friday night. Shakinah arrived just in time to celebrate her 22nd birthday with us - also in the mud =) I appreciated the company.


Enjoying two of my favorite gifts - a beautiful shirt from my mom and an amazing selection of teas from the Prince St. Cafe that Stu sent to me. I couldn't have asked for better gifts. Or a more wonderful mother or boyfriend =)


The birthday t-shirts also arrived just in time! Stu had these t-shirts designed as a fundraiser for the wooden cabinets that did such a wonderful job of protecting our school supplies from the rains and wind of Hanna. Back home, friends and family wore these on my ACTUAL birthday, September 5th. Also the day of First Friday festivities in Lancaster City. Lindsay and I are happy to have our own t-shirts to wear now - though I must say it feels a bit funny walking around with a picture of my own face on my shirt =) It made quite a few people do double-takes when they saw me wearing it!