Thursday was a pretty big day for a couple of volunteers. Brooklyn--turned the right old age of 19, and Ciera received her mission call!
Callie (from the US office) called me first thing in the morning. Like at 7:00. Her first question was "oh are you sick?" which I am assuming is because of my morning man voice mixed with a little bit of the cold I do have. But mostly it was morning man voice. Anyway, we've had a plan for what happens when the call comes and it went off flawlessly. Ciera's parents got the call sent to their house in Murray, then took it to the local Fed-Ex/Kinkos store to have an employee open it up, scan the letter onto a thumb drive and then reseal the envelope. This made it so that besides the random lucky Fed-Ex/Kinkos employee, no one else had seen. The thumb drive was taken by Ciera's father, who emailed the file (still without looking at it of course) to me, who then went over to the office and asked the staff to help me print it off and get it in an envelope all without me or Berlyn (who came for moral support) looking at it. The office ended up being the most dangerous part because luck would have it that the campus IT man happened to be the one I had to ask to print it off for me and of course he wanted to know why our printer wasn't capable of doing it. Trying to explain it was a surprise for Ciera, and we were not suppose to see it seemed to go over well until he pulled it up huge on the screen and asked me to confirm that it was the right document (which I was able to peek at the top part of it and confirm without seeing where she was called) and then once it was printed he threw the sheet down face up, right in front of me. Still, I somehow managed not to look, folded it up, got it in this envelope and passed it off to this crazy excited/happy/nervous lady. Of course Berlyn and I decided to decorate it come first--we were just killing time until her family and friend gathered in Utah anyway. haha.
Understandably, there were a few tears
But mostly a lot of squealing and ear to ear smiles
Obviously, Brooklyn's birthday happened way before Ciera's mission call. 19 years before to be exact.
Brooklyn reading her birthday card from us, which contained 19 reasons we love her, and Berlyn obviously wanted to be involved with all the festivities, as she was looking over Brooklyn's shoulders the whole time
Her new birthday pants! (And yes I cropped Berlyn out of this one)
Cohen giving his sister an epic birthday card--it was a big hit
Camry drew/painted her a super cute bird picture
And last but not least, Brooklyn used her own strength to break open the pinata. There were a few painful cries because it was REALLY hard, but no pain no gain right?
Callie (from the US office) called me first thing in the morning. Like at 7:00. Her first question was "oh are you sick?" which I am assuming is because of my morning man voice mixed with a little bit of the cold I do have. But mostly it was morning man voice. Anyway, we've had a plan for what happens when the call comes and it went off flawlessly. Ciera's parents got the call sent to their house in Murray, then took it to the local Fed-Ex/Kinkos store to have an employee open it up, scan the letter onto a thumb drive and then reseal the envelope. This made it so that besides the random lucky Fed-Ex/Kinkos employee, no one else had seen. The thumb drive was taken by Ciera's father, who emailed the file (still without looking at it of course) to me, who then went over to the office and asked the staff to help me print it off and get it in an envelope all without me or Berlyn (who came for moral support) looking at it. The office ended up being the most dangerous part because luck would have it that the campus IT man happened to be the one I had to ask to print it off for me and of course he wanted to know why our printer wasn't capable of doing it. Trying to explain it was a surprise for Ciera, and we were not suppose to see it seemed to go over well until he pulled it up huge on the screen and asked me to confirm that it was the right document (which I was able to peek at the top part of it and confirm without seeing where she was called) and then once it was printed he threw the sheet down face up, right in front of me. Still, I somehow managed not to look, folded it up, got it in this envelope and passed it off to this crazy excited/happy/nervous lady. Of course Berlyn and I decided to decorate it come first--we were just killing time until her family and friend gathered in Utah anyway. haha.
I''ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story, BUT--she will be serving in the Carlsbad, California Mission. Watch out Cali!
Obviously, Brooklyn's birthday happened way before Ciera's mission call. 19 years before to be exact.
We spent some time last night making her balloon garland (Pintrest would have been so proud) and were going to surprise her with them this morning-only thing is we had to stuff them in a garbage bag to transport them to her room and sadly, we were never able to un-stuff/un-knot them. So she got a couple of signs with masses of balloons instead. We had a small party after dinner, where we gave her presents and and surrounded her in the circle of love--a circle that everyone gets to say one thing they love about the birthday girl. After the party we have a movie night where we ate brownies (THAT WERE AMAZING--I for sure need to get one of those mixes for myself next time I get the chance) and watched the Lucky One. The only thing that could of made it better was if Zack Efron crashed the party himself. But--he didn't. Go figure. Girls can dream right?
Brooklyn reading her birthday card from us, which contained 19 reasons we love her, and Berlyn obviously wanted to be involved with all the festivities, as she was looking over Brooklyn's shoulders the whole time
Avery and Cohan made her a pinata "B"(please insert your own squiggly line above the n in pinata)
Cohen giving his sister an epic birthday card--it was a big hit
Camry drew/painted her a super cute bird picture
And last but not least, Brooklyn used her own strength to break open the pinata. There were a few painful cries because it was REALLY hard, but no pain no gain right?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROOKLYN! WE LOVE YOU!
