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As many people know, I’ll be on the road during my real birthday, August 16th, so instead I celebrated it with my sister (whose actual birthday is today). The party itself ended up lasting from 3-6pm or so, and despite my lack of decisive spirit regarding what I coveted this particular year, I received a slew of amazing presents, including~

… the amazing digital camera that I had been advocating for! So naturally I put it to work right away by taking a few shots of the surroundings and the presents I received.

For every birthday celebration at our house, I’m in charge of decorating. (Though, let me tell you that I don’t particularly enjoy decorating because frankly, I suck at it.) One of the main attractions each year is the use of crepe paper to create shapes and images in this open area that separates our kitchen and living room. I’ve done fish, hearts, stars, musical notes on a staff, and much more… so naturally this year I was at a total loss for what to do. The result?

I’m not even sure what to call this design. “Slightly Lopsided Square Quadrilateral Rotated 45 Degrees With Accompanying Lines Placed for Aesthetic Purposes”? Or I guess if you want to be reminded of Calculus, it could be a very limited slope field for a circle?

Despite my lack of affinity for non-tacky decoration, my siblings still enjoyed it thoroughly. My sister and I opened presents alternatingly, and I ended up receiving:

• an entire slew of pro-looking clothing
• quite a few figurines and collectables
• miscellaneous knick-knacks; bracelets, pencils, boxes
• adorable fleece blankets (for the frigid nights in Massachusetts)
• as mentioned above, the digital camera (score)
• … and a digital camcorder (double score)

Shown above is a conglomeration of presents that my sister and I both received - naturally, the fiction books are hers while the “1001 Things Every College Student Needs to Know” is mine. Despite the rainbow-coloured cover, the content of the book is amazing; the style of writing is very similiar to my own, in that blunt and commanding tone that expresses strong opinions the way they ought to be expressed - clearly and without sugarcoating.

And I know I’m usually not one anymore to squeal about how adorably cute things are, but I couldn’t resist taking a close-up of the Hello Kitty plushies that my sister and I each received (mine’s on the right). I used to have quite the collection of HK items (actually I still have all of them, haha) seeing as how she is the only cartoon-ish character that I actually have a true affinity for. I also received a pair of HK pajamas, bracelet, and some pencils for my horde ;)

And as per tradition, my sisters and I dressed up our dolls for a photo. We all received these for our birthdays (mine is a Samantha from the American Girl historical collection, given to me on my 9th birthday, second from the left). Along with my HK collection, I have a doll collection for display purposes instead of really “playing” with them, along with an entire large box filled to the brim with 50+ dresses and clothing sets. Anyways, it’s a tradition that any birthday and Christmas, we would get our dolls out and take pictures with them. Even though I’m not a child anymore and admittedly find more entertainment in my laptop, it’s a nice touch of nostalgia every major holiday to see these dolls again.

I wish I had more interesting pictures of the party itself, but it was kind of hard to take pictures with my camera when it was still wrapped up in its box, waiting for me to unearth it from the depths of its confinement. As an apology, I’ll provide for you a picture of our 42.86%-eaten cake (yes I actually estimated that calculation) - delicious vanilla with frosting and trimmed with fruit. Naturally, I plucked off all the peaches before anyone else could lay hands on them.

… and that’s about it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off for a well-deserved card marathon with my family once again. Hopefully they can last longer than they attempted to on graduation night. I’m considering teaching my siblings how to play poker, but I have a slight feeling that instilling gambling ideals into them at a young age isn’t exactly the best influence an elder sister should be exerting… or is it? ;)