I have three words...

but what are they?

a) HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNIFER!
b) I love grits
c) Favorite... Day... Ever...
d) All of the above

of course it's d. 9 times out of 10, if "all of the above" is an option, that's probably the answer.

anyways, as you may or may not know, today was my 18th birthday. ("today" being the 21st... even though i am technically typing this at the wee hours of the 22nd) this day started out with happy signs on my bathroom mirror and a ridiculously tasty breakfast, courtesy of my cute mama.

i tried to get a picture of the signs... it ended up being a happy picture of myself. whoops.

Bacon, eggs, waffles, & grits... i love birthday breakfast.

following such things, i then drove MYSELF to the Wal Mart in St. George to wait for my best friend Nikiah to meet me there. the plan was for she and i to hang out for a bit, then my friends Rendon and Clay (and they brought their friend Hayden, who is awesome, for the record) would meet us in St. George once Rendon got out of wrestling practice. anyways, i ended up waiting by myself for quite a while at Wal Mart, but it was fine since i had lots of stuff to get for my birthday party (more on that later). once Nikiah got there though, we decided to go ahead and go have lunch at Olive Garden... because i LOVE that place!

We got some frozen [virgin] margaritas at Olive Garden. Mmmm...

she and i ended up kind of just kickin around St. George for a while waiting for the boys to get there, which was fine, since the main point of this excursion was so i could hang out with my far-away best friends on my birthday. unfortunately though, the guys didn't get to town until like 3:15 in the afternoon, and Nikiah had to leave around then to get back to Manti in time for her sister's dance review. So all 5 of us hung out for about 30 seconds, then Nikiah left. :( that then left 4 St. George-retarded people to find something fun to do before i left to go to Kanab for my party (which the boys were not able to go to, due to Rendon's daggum wrestling practice in the morning, so they wanted to get home at a semi-decent time).

Oh my stars... how i do love this girl. (:

after Nikiah left, the four of us tried to figure out something to do. while deciding on a course of action, Clay was like "Look! A D.I.! Oh, we're so going there to look for a Big Wheel." (don't ask.) so we go in this D.I., we're just pokin around you know, doin our thing. well at one point, Rendon and Clay are off doin somethin, and Hayden and i were just standing there when some random mysterious man walks up to us, hands me a plain white envelope, says "Merry Christmas", and walks away. the first thing i thought was that he'd found it in the store, decided he didn't want it anymore, and passed it on to me so he wouldn't have to put it back. i held the envelope for a minute, not really sure what to do with it. by then, all three of the boys were there by me. so i opened it, and Rendon said "Jennifer, there's money in there." i opened it some more, and i said "Rendon, there are 100 moneys in there." sure enough, there was a legitimate $100 bill along with a card inside this envelope. needless to say, i kind of freaked out a little bit. all i could say was "is this real? what just happened?" finally, a D.I. employee came over and was like "Yeah, you're like the 5th one today." "what?" "Yeah, these people just give out $100 bills to random people around Christmas time. they do it every year." "but why?!" "it's their way of spreading Christmas cheer."

what are the odds though, right?! i mean... first of all, it's my birthday. second, why me? not to sound like vain or full of myself or whatever, but i mean... it's my birthday, so i tried to look really cute today. meaning... do i look like i desperately need that money? why didn't he give it to like a homeless man on the street? granted, the DI is certainly a place to go to find people in need, but really? a group of teenagers trying to find something to do? i feel a little bit bad for getting it. maybe it should have gone to someone who like doesn't have electricity at their house right now. you know? it's just insane... i still can't hardly believe it happened to me. it's just so... coincidental. after that happened, i was really quiet for a long time. i've kind of been in deep thought ever since then.

after i came back into reality, Rendon, Clay, Hayden, and i realized that we couldn't just hang out at the DI all day long, so we decided to go bowling. HA. first of all, it probably took us close to like 45 minutes to even find the first bowling alley, and when we did, the guy was like "oooh sorry, but we have a league coming in soon. we won't have any open lanes until like 9:30." while Clay was close to enraged at this point, i was pretty much hysterical. i thought it was sooo funny. obviously, i was in a pretty great mood. so we went to find the other bowling alley, which took another 20 minutes or so... only to get the same exact answer. which made it all that much funnier to me. meanwhile, Rendon, Clay, and Hayden are just being themselves, which is about as funny as it gets. i was close to tears the whole time from laughing so hard. we finally ended up at the Laser Mania place in St. George, so we played a round of laser tag and glow in the dark mini golf. i took last place in laser tag (i've always been awful at that game), but Rendon and i tied for first in mini golf. whoo whoo!

This was a Spiderman thing in the minigolf place... right in the middle of my backswing, Rendon goes "WOAH it's Spiderman!" Totally threw me off. Oh well... haha

after a couple hours, i realized that i was going to be late for my own birthday party, so i figured i probably should split. the boys drove me back to Missy (who'd been at Wal Mart since like 10:00 this morning), we said our goodbyes, and i headed back for Kanab.

my Kanab party was way fun. i had it at the La Estancia (a housing complex in town) clubhouse and just invited some friends to come over and watch a movie, eat food, and/or sit in the hot tub. it was great! a lot more people showed up than i'd anticipated, which is always nice. i'd wanted to take pictures of that party, but my phone (aka, my digital camera) was dying, so it wouldn't let me take pictures. :/ oh well, i got some pretty decent ones, i'd say!

all in all though, this was probably literally my favorite day ever. yes, including that one from the Chuck Wagon in sophomore year. while that one was dang near perfect, today was beyond phenomenal. between becoming an adult, hanging out with all of my best friends in one day (with the exception of Ashton, but i forgive her), partying with my other way good friends, being the target of a Christmas miracle, and hearing from my family, i don't think this day could have gotten much better.

and thus, i thank my lucky stars.