the harvesters half party

about a year ago i discovered something really fun...harvesters [our local food bank] hosts birthday parties! the idea is genius. you invite your friends, volunteer together for a couple hours and then head over to the party room for cake. all for free! and pretty much everyone knows i love free.

i was so excited to throw myself a bash but alas, they were all booked up for the month of july. luckily i'm pretty into celebrating my half birthday as well, so that's what we did.

to start off, we mixed in with a group from a local lions club and packed bags of food for the backsnack program. basically kids from low income families get a small bag of food to take home each weekend. kim actually has some students in her class that benefit from this program, which made it extra fun. a few of us worked on the assembly line filling the bags while the rest were in charge of keeping the table stocked and breaking down boxes.

once our work time was up we headed over to the party room to enjoy my delicious lemon half cake, compliments of missy.

the party people

sarah . joy . joshua . shelly . missy . kim

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i have the greatest friends

not only are my friends just super people in general, they are often kind enough to entertain me and my unusual ideas. one such idea is my insistence to celebrate half birthdays. i know it's kind of silly and doesn't really deserve much fanfare, but i just get excited when it's january 16th. last year my co-workers had a little celebration and this year did not disappoint. missy made me some special chocolate covered strawberries and my mom provided the bubbly. a little serenade from tori and sophia and the day was complete...thanks friends!!

sophie and i with my play-doh cupcake...

...and us blowing out the candle

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i just love birthdays

laugh if you'd like, but happy half birthday to me! that's right, today i turned 29 1/2. normally there is not a whole lot of fanfare surrounding my half birthday, aside from me announcing it to whoever i happen to come in contact with that day [and my wonderfully appeasing mom sending me a card], but today was a different story. and it is, after all, a pretty important half. i was working at john knox and when i came back into the office from serving lunch i was showered with confetti and streamers as amber yelled "happy half birthday!" it was a delightful surprise, complete with balloons and a bag of popcorn. the residents i work with are great [and often amusing], but my co-workers entertain my crazy ideas and are equally fun!

and just because i like to show off my friends, here's a picture from last fall when we celebrated the 80th birthday of our faithful and fabulous volunteer carol.

shelly . amber . carol . dia

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