So... As you may have heard, I am now the perfect age of 22. (Thank you so much Taylor Swift for writing a song about my age. You are awesome. I like your bangs too.)
But real talk here.I truly believe 22 is my p e r f e c t age.
Let me tell you why:
1. I like how "twenty-two" sounds.
2. I get to work on painting this year.
3. I still have a lifetime of adventures ahead of me.
4. I can eat whatever I want.
5. I'm done with school and I have my degree.
6. I have a plethora of opportunities to figure what I want to do for a career.
7. I met my true love and married the heck out of him!
8. I get to sing and act silly with him whenever!
9. I get to live in St. George where it's sunny.
10. I get to take institute classes.
11. I can rock a dress that I found at a thrift shop.
12. Frozen came out in theaters & I saw it when I was 22, therefore I love it and always will.
13. I get to go to the temple!
14. I get to live with my best friend and I get to see him every single morning, day, and night.
15. I can do my hair however I want to do it and I love it.
16. I get to be a team primary teacher with Drew this year! We'll be teaching 10 yr olds.
17. I get to look forward to my first year anniversary of being married to my favorite person ever!
18. I get to be an <assistant> preschool teacher.
19. I get to work at Dixie State University.
20. I learned how to use pepper spray and I'm not afraid to use it!
21. Twenty-two is not too old, & it's not too young. It's just perfect.
22. And last but not least, 22 is my perfect age because I get a song to dedicate my entire year to! Seriously, thanks T-Swift. I know you'll always have my back.
So there. I'm 22 and I'm loving it!! Now let me share with ya'll what Drew and I have been up to and how we have celebrated my birthday.
First off we'll start out with new years eve. Drew and I ended up going to our cousin's house for a little party for a while. We came home and watched Ice Age 3 and then at midnight we watched people light off fireworks all around our apartment. It was a pretty laid back new years eve but it was wonderful. We drank hot chocolate and shared a kiss at midnight. It was fun!
The next day, was NEW YEARS DAY! And that is when we started celebrating my birthday ;) We went out to dinner with our friends Cecy & Colby and then we met up with Lindsey & Parker. We played some games such as Headbanz, Hilarium, and Funny or Die, and we were laughing so hard our neighbors down stairs knocked on /their/ ceiling to signal us to be quiet! HA!! That had never happened before, but we just laughed a little more and then settled down a bit. Then we finished the night by playing the ps3 and making crafts! The boys played ps3 while the girls made black leather tassels with gold bling to go on our matching purses! They turned out to be so cute!
The next day Drew and I got the sweeeet opportunity to go to Richfield for four days! We arrived on Thursday and played games that night with our family.
We got Ticket to Ride for Christmas and so we decided to give it a try with my family-- best game ever! It was so much fun.
Because there were more than 5 of us, we split into teams. It was funny because everyone just kept whispering to each other to make their tactics and plans for their next move.
The game got pretty competitive! It turned out to be hilarious too because Kinsely and Drew started singing songs by Miley Cyrus; wrecking ball, nobody's perfect, best of both worlds, etc. They were definitely a dynamic duo! They had us laughing so hard.
And of course they ended up winning. Not sure how... but they did. So congrats to Kinsley and Drew!
The next day (Friday) we went to Beaver to watch Kambry's basketball game! But before we left, I met up with my best friend Tiana. We went to the Ideal Dairy and got a treat and visited for a while. Man I miss that girl and I wish that we lived closer!!! But don't worry T, we will live by each other again someday!!
It was so good to catch up though, and my ice cream was heavenly. [german chocolate cake ice cream from the dairy = all time favorite ice cream ever... yum!]
My sister's basketball game was fun because it is always entertaining to watch her play! She's wonderful. I can't believe she's a senior though!!!
And (below) is Kinsley my other sister. She is so beautiful!
Drew's parents Linda and Bill were so sweet and drove up to Beaver to join us! It was for only a short time, but it was fun for everyone to be together for a bit!
We got back to Richfield later that night and just hung out. It was pretty late and we were all really tired and so we went to bed. The next day was Saturday. We went out to lunch at Pepperbelly's with my dad's side of the family to celebrate both mine and my aunt Lisa's birthdays! Her birthday is the 7th, right after mine! So we decided to celebrate it together. It was a lot of fun!
Later that evening we got together with my mom's side of the family and went bowling to celebrate my birthday!
Let me tell you how funny it was. Seriously none of us bowl hardly at all! Bowling skills definitely does not run in the family. That's okay though! It made the whole night more fun.
My grandpa Doug decided to give $5 to the person who scored the highest and so of course we were all trying our best.
2 pins... gutter ball.. 1 pin... gutter ball... gutter ball.. occasional strike out of nowhere!.. gutter ball, etc.
But we all loved it and I hope that we get to go again sometime soon. Maybe we'd all be a little better if we got more practice in ;)
Obviously (pictured above) was a moment that one of those surprise strikes came into play or something exciting like that.. ha ha!
Mine and Drew's bowling history is quite great. The first time we bowled together I won him! A whopping 140 to 90 or something. (But that was probably all luck, let's be honest.) So this time around I had to keep up my status of winning him! The game was pretty close and I'm not gonna lie-- I lucked out and got a couple strikes in a row which put me ahead for a while.
But despite the competition and cheering and messing around with each other, I actually ended up winning the $5 from my grandpa!! I was ecstatic.
I'm not even kidding. I was seriously ecstatic. I was jumping around I was so happy. ha ha! However, my dad actually ended up with the same score as me so we tied!! Wahoo!!
But he graciously let me have the five dollar bill. Thank you dad :)
Here's my cute family!! (But we sure missed Kambry that night though because she went up north!)
Bowling ended up being so much fun. I'm glad we went!
That same night of bowling, we came home and played more games! We brought up a bunch of our games that we got for Christmas and so we spent the rest of the night playing them: Sour apples to apples, Hilarium, and Headbanz! Seriously some of the best games out there. Have any other fun ones? Please do share!!
Also! Late that night our friends Alyssa & Barry came up to chill for a little while. They spent the night and next day with us and our family! It was fun to see them and spend time with them!
The next day (Sunday) we got to go to my cousin's baby blessing! We spent the afternoon with family eating and visiting. We literally did that all day long.
We had to leave pretty early that evening because Drew had "plans" for me in Cedar, so we ended our Richfield celebrations by eating a yummy meal at home followed by candles and a cream puff dessert w/ homemade chocolate sauce. YUM! I got to open a couple gifts and then before we knew it we were already back on the road again.
We left Richfield and headed for Cedar to see Drew's parents. (They wouldn't make it down on my actual birthday so they wanted to see us before)
We got to their house and walked inside and to my surprise all of Drew's friends were there!!! It was such a fun little surprise! Linda and Bill had cake and ice cream for everyone and I got to open a couple gifts. It made me so happy!
It was the perfect ending to a perfect birthday weekend. I felt so loved and blessed! I have such wonderful friends and family! I am literally surrounded angels! I'm so lucky.
With a big sigh of exhaustion we finally arrived back home to St. George and unloaded all of our stuff quickly so we could get to bed because we were so tired!
The next day was my actual birthday! I got up and went to preschool for the morning. The kids told me "Happy Birthday Mrs. Hansen!" all day long and it was seriously the sweetest sound. I loved it!
Luckily neither Drew or I had to work for the rest of the day so we celebrated by going to the movie Frozen. Ah! It is the CUTEST movie e v e r. We both loved it!!! It is definitely one of our favorites and you can bet that we will for sure buy it as soon as it comes out. [If you haven't seen it yet, then GO! It's adorable.]
After the movie we went to the mall for a bit and then later we went out to dinner at Cracker Barrel because I'd never been there before.
It was really good and our experience was great because we had a cute little waitress who spoiled us. She brought us old fashioned raspberry lemonade and for dessert we got to share some chocolately chocolate coke cake! Made with real coca cola. It reminded me of the chocolate cake on Matilda.. you know, the movie! The part where the Traunchable makes the innocent little boy eat allllllll that gooey chocolate cake. You know how you always wanted to eat cake like that just because it looked kind of good from watching the movie? Yeah, well that is exactly how we felt eating this cake. It was so rich! But it was yummy.
(Gosh, I just realized that all I ever talk about is yummy food. I'm sorry.. haha)
After dinner we invited our St. George friends over for a hot chocolate bar! We had a few different flavors of hot chocolate to choose from and I also set out some cookies, marshmallows, and ice cream for additional things to add to your drink. It was fun! We ended up playing a round of Headbanz and then eventually called it a night because we had school and work the next day. But let me tell you, my twenty-second birthday was better than I could have ever asked for. I loved being able to spend time with friends and family! I live for that. And all the food and games are just the toppings on the cake.
Thanks again to Taylor Swift for singing to me all day. Here's to a full year of "I'm feelin 22!"
Love,
Kate
