Good bye Teenager years...Hello, Twenties!

So yesterday was one my 20th birthday. Every year, people ask me "So do you feel older?" and I always say no. Because I don't. But this year was different. I don't know if it was just the underlying notion of "no longer being a teenager" or what, but honestly, all day on Monday I felt different. It was hard to explain. I was talking to my roommate, Stephanie, who turned 20 earlier this year, and she said she felt the same way. I find that interesting. It's hard to believe I'm 20. I realize 20 is not very old at all, but it is just odd. However, I am very excited to no longer be in the "teenage years." Those of you who know me well know that my teenage/high school years were less than stellar. Crappy might be a better word. Even though it's just a number, I am so happy to finally be done with them. I hope that the next ten (twenty..thirty...eighty...) years prove Brad Paisley to be correct when his song "Letter to Me" says "These are no where near the best years of your life."

And with that, in honor of myself, I'm going to do a sweet blog. All about me. I know I'm basically everyone's favorite, so really, I'm just doing you all a favor. :) Just kidding.

I had a sweet idea of posting a picture from every birthday of mine since I was born . . . But this epic idea came to me last night . . . And unfortunately, I don't usually carry around these pictures with me. So I went searching through facebook, and found pictures from my last two birthdays. I found some good pictures for comparison. Let's see if I look any different!

2007

2008

2009

I think I look basically the same. Though, as my roommates and I always say, you are no longer attractive once you hit the age of 20, so I guess I have gotten increasingly less attractive. Sad day.

2007 Birthday Dinner--Johnny Carinos with Mom, Dad, and Michael

2008 Birthday Dinner-Tepanyaki with Cindy, AJ, and Daniel

Birthday Dinner 2009-Applebee's with Cindy, AJ, Lyla, Kristalyn, David, Mason, and Carter

All awesome, and yummy dinners with different members of my family. Aren't they all the best?

Cake 2007

Cake 2008

Cake 2009

0All of these cakes look relatively different (well, especially the last one :), but all of them (But the last one) have one thing in common. They are German Chocolate! Yummy! My favorite kind of cake. This year I was spoiled and got not one, not two, but THREE cakes. Way to make me feel special :) They were all different...as you can tell. I don't have a picture of the third one, but it was a really yummy one (haha...Jeremy's mom made it for me. Extremely Nice? Yes. Random. Yes. As soon as I got to their house, his dad was like "Don't worry, we didn't invite Jeremy.")

Anyways, now onto the details about my birthday. Which, I'm sure, all of my loyal readers have been dying to hear. On Saturday, my roommates, Cortney, Rachael, and Stephanie, told me they were going to get blood drawn in Springville. I thought this was weird, but then they left. They were gone for like two hours, and I was all by myself in our apartment (actually Hilary was there. But I think she was on her computer, correct Hilary?). I was kind of getting depressed and annoyed they were gone so long. Anyways, Cort texts me and is like "hey do you wanna go to dinner tonight? don't eat." And even though I really didn't have any money, I was like, alright sounds good. They come home around 6:30 or something, and they are like "Sorry about that. We stopped at the store too." So I'm like, random, but whatever. Then someone knocks on the door, turns out to be one of our friends. Then this happens twice more. Apparently more people were going to dinner. I was not in the greatest mood and didn't feel like hanging out with a lot of people, but I just went with it. We ended up driving to Olive Garden. I hadn't been there in forever, so I was excited about that. We get seated in this awesome little private area, and it was a lot of fun. There are so many choices there....Kind of overwhelming. But anyways, we ate dinner, joked around...It was great. Towards the end, the waiters come over and say something Rachael. I wasn't relaly paying attention, but everyone is like "no! not her." and then point to me. The waiters come and sing to me something in Italian, and then leave. At this point I'm so confused as to what is happening. After that Rachael is like "Well Katie this is actually for your birthday, and we're buying you dinner. It didn't really work out like it was supposed too.." I felt extremely dumb because I didn't realize that the waiters were singing to me. But after I realized that all my friends were here for my birthday, it all made sense. It was so nice and sweet of them. Afterwards we went back to my apartment, and apparently when my roommates had been in Springville "getting blood drawn" they had actually been making me a birthday cake! So they had a little party for me, and it was just a really awesome night. Like I had said, my day hadn't been the best for various reasons, and this just made it so much better. As corny as this sounds, I feel like them doing this on the day they did wasn't a coincidence, and Heavenly Father knew I needed to feel like I had friends and people that loved me. It was great. I truly have some of the best friends :)

On my actual birthday, I had to work. Yay. The day was pretty average, nothing too exciting happened. Daniel and Charbel called me from Mexico, which was a nice surprise! But for dinner, Cindy and AJ and Lyla came down from Salt Lake, and we all went out to dinner with Kristalyn and David and their little boys. It was so much fun. We went to Applebee's, which is one of my favorites. It was really crowded with lots of kids, because apparently Monday night the kids meals are only 1.99. Even thought it was loud, it was so fun to see some of my siblings and their kids and celebrate my birthday with them. I love my family! It was really fun :)

When I got home, I opened the door and my friend Alex was sitting there and was like "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" It kind of scared me because I wasn't expecting it. Alex is pretty much my favorite person ever. Seriously, I have never met a more sincere, sweet, and talented guy. I pretty much forced my friendship upon him at the beginning of the semester when my roommates and I were knocking on random doors, and I made him come to a dance with us. Pretty sure we scared him to death. But we've been good friends since. It was really nice of him to come by and say happy birthday. Oh, and my awesome friend Eric brought me a present earlier in the day too. Eric is another really genuine, great guys. I've been blessed to meet some great people this year!

Anyways, my birthday was really fun. Thanks to everyone who made it special, whether by leaving me a comment on facebook, sending me a text, or hanging out with me. This past year was full of many experiences I never thought I'd go through (for better, and for worse), and I'm hoping this next year is even better!! Here are some random pictures from the past few days :)

My cute nephews, Mason and Carter, and me at Applebees.

Alex and Me

Hilary, Me, and Cortney

Me and Audrey

The dessert applebee's gave me. yay!

Stephanie, Marty, Me, Eric

Mason helped me blow out my candles!

Kristian, Me, and Matt (Matt usually doesn't look so silly)