Birthday Madness.

I was so blessed this year by all my friends and family, they were all so thoughtful and planned a surprise birthday party for me!  

Those sneaky people, did it without me even knowing.  I am still convinced that the only reason I didn't figure out that something was going on was because I was in Georgia during most of the planning.  ;)

I think though by the end of all the birthday things I was definitely all birthdayed out.  But, that is the way it is supposed to be methinks.  

I don't have any pictures of the first part of the shenanigans that happened in Portland.  So, I'll just give you a rundown of everything we (we as in, Rebecca, Josiah, Ethan, Meshach, Seth, Josh, and I) did.  First, we went to a movie in the mall...  Okay, just let me say this...  That mall is the weirdest coolest mall I have ever been in (I know, since I have such extensive mall expertise... not), then we walked around said mall, waited for the wanderer (a.k.a Josiah) to come back to us since he wandered off, we know not where to, and didn't tell us.  Just had fun, ate lunch, walked aimlessly from one store to the next.  Poked around in bazaar stores, watched a homeless drummer do his thing, sang on the street on the way back to the car getting many sideways glances in the process, and had tons of fun gawking at all the weird curiosities of mankind that are collected in that living, breathing, museum of craziness that we call Portland.

After all of that we went to the Mack's house, where there was a "Movie Night for Gileskirk", I was kinda surprised that we were going to a movie night since I didn't get any email for it but ooookay, maybe they just forgot to send it to me right?  Wrong!  Basically, they all lied to me....  Sigh.....  (What was that about bad friends Rebecca?)  

When we got to the Mack's house, and after everyone yelled "surprise!" and sang happy birthday and all that jazz, I looked around the room and noticed that there were a lot of people wearing red lipstick and sunglasses. Ya, it was pretty awesome.  

Here are a few pictures from the evening that one of my sisters (not sure which one) took.  

This was before we got there, Liberty and Israel were patiently waiting by the window.
Aren't they the cutest things?

Liberty, she is so cute!
 I may or may not be biased.  hehe

Mrs. Mack looked pretty awesome in her "Miss. Scarlet" outfit.

Mr. Green and Professor Plum.
Can you tell where they were going with these outfits?  We played a live clue game!  It was pretty fun, I almost died on the kitchen floor after eating a raw onion but other than that it was a pretty fun game.  :)

(Left to Right: Mrs. Mack as Miss. Scarlet, Mrs. Kock as Mrs. Peacock, and My mother as Mrs. White)
Yes my mother was the one that almost killed me. haha not really mom.
They all did really good at acting out their parts.  :)
Oh ya, and Miss. Scarlet...  Professor Plum...  I think he kinda likes you.  ;)

My beautiful sister Keziah.

Left to right: Mr. Green, Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard, and Miss. Scarlet

Oh my goodness, kids at heart I guess.  

this.... was a joke.
My grandma made me this for my birthday. haha

Israel is such a sweetheart!

Whoa Lydia.

Awww, Little Justice.

ah ha!  One of the grand architects of the plan.  :)  My gorgeous friend and accomplice, Rebecca.

Hey look, it's Liberty again.

Beautiful Talitha and Lydia.

This picture...  is funny.
Good one Heather.  

(From left to right: Seth, Josh V, Josh S., and Meshach)
These guys are funny.

sigh......

This is so them.  Nice shades guys.

Hi Heidi!

I believe they were all playing some music game or other.  Musical Charades I think it was called?  It looked like a lot of fun!

It's Xaleb!
 you know like Xylophone? 

This was on the fridge for the clue game...  It was quite disturbing actually.  :)

After that the Mack's girls invited me to spend the night at their house, so I did.  It was a lot of fun!  We pretty much laid in bed and talked till like.....  3 in the morning and giggled over pointless things.  And in the morning we watched "Little Dorrit", talked with a random friend of theirs that decided to drop by, and ate, we ate like all day I think.


This year was one of the best birthdays ever.  I had so much fun with all my friends and family and hope to be able to bless every single one of them as much as they have blessed me.


Love,
Han

Georgia, the W's, and the Vision Forum Father Daughter Retreat.

Oh goodness...  Where to start, let me just say that our trip to Georgia was a blast! We had so much fun.  We didn't get as many pictures as I wanted to, but I've never been one for taking pictures.  :)  Hopefully one of these days we get someone in our family that is totally obsessed with the camera and photography so that we won't have to worry about it anymore, but as that isn't the case at the moment, I will have to be content with my lack pictures, or ya know, actually take some initiative and do it myself.  I did steal some of these pictures from our friends blog.  :)

This trip was really, really, amazing and we were blessed to be able to go and stay with the most awesome family.  So without further ado here is some of the pictures from our trip to Georgia.

(Photo Credit: Esther. )  this...  Was taken above some weird state...  hehe

The W's were so nice to let the girls ride their pony.

Laney and I.  She is such a beautiful friend, I mean seriously, inside and out.  I absolutely love her.

Michael was telling us all about something on our ride down the dirt road...  I can't remember exactly what it was though, sorry Michael.  :)

Mallory and Naomi,  two of my favorite girls ever.
 Mallory, looks good in all of her pictures, (she doesn't think so but that is irrelevant)  Mallory is also a pretty wicked cook.  (If I do say so myself)  :)

Their driveway.

They have so many cool butterflies there. 

Lindsay and Keziah.  Lindsay is so funny, and so gracious to help all my sisters ride on their horse.  

Poor Timmy.
He got stung by a bee.  It was so hilarious and so sad at the same time, I couldn't help but laugh every time I looked at him, the poor little guy.  He was such a man about it though.

(Photo Credit: Mallory)
By dinner he looked like a little bunny rabbit.  His face made his jokes that much funnier, haha.

Nina and Naomi.
Nina is so crazy and awesome, I loved laughing and talking with you!!  Thanks for putting up with me.  ;)

(Photo Credit: Mallory)
I _love_ this picture of Laney.  So beautiful, it was right after it rained.

Lindsay

Sadly, this was the only picture that we got at the Father Daughter tea because our camera went dead...  Sad day indeed.  

After the tea we went to the butterfly garden...  Which was uh-mazing, God's creation and all the detail that he puts into everything, even the wings of the butterflies are so beautiful.  It never ceases to amaze me 

(left to right: Nina, Laney, Naomi, Me, Mallory)  It was so warm in the butterfly conservatory, oh my goodness, I thought I was going to die with how humid it was in there. haha

After the Father Daughter Retreat we all went to the F's house.  We had such fun there fellowshipping with all the other fathers and daughters that went to the retreat.  Thank you so much for having us!

More visiting.

Mr. F, telling us all about his fathers legacy, which was so beautiful.  When I die, I want my children to view me, just as he viewed his father.  

This baby was such a cutie!  Oh my goodness, I mean, look at him!  So cute!

My beautiful sister Esther.  

Nina and Esther

Brooke and Esther.
Brooke is such a sweetheart, she was such a good example to me while we were there.  Not to mention she is absolutely gorgeous.  ;)

Lindsay

The girls had such fun with this hammock.  

The dad's talking.

More talking.  :)

Haha!  I love Timmy's smile in this picture. 

Naomi is so rad!

Lydia and Nina.
We are off to go swimming!!!  It was so warm, like 80 degrees, that's verging on too hot if you ask me, they said it was "cool weather" hahaha cool weather.   sigh......
A sharp contrast from the snow we were getting up here in Washington.

The girls had so much fun swimming in the pool!  Thank you for taking us W's!

cooling off in style.  hehehe

I....  didn't want me picture taken.  haha

Nina, about to take the plunge.

(Photo Credit: Mallory) When we got back from swimming Laney made some uh-mazing Pecan Pie for me for my birthday.  I'm serious like...  totally awesome pecan pie.
Thank you for making my birthday complete!  

haha, Mr. W makes the funniest faces sometimes.
Thank you so much for letting us come and crash your pad!!  We really, really enjoyed getting to know your whole family.  

Benny, I gotcha'.

tsk, tsk, tsk.  Michael kept hiding from the camera.  (shhhhh, don't tell him, I got him later.)

ah ha!  Cornered him.  

(From left to right: Keziah, Nina, Lydia, Naomi, Mallory, Me, Laney, and Esther)
We were having waaayyyy too much fun.  Can you tell?

Brooke put Lydia's hands on hers and started playing the piano.  Lydia thought that that was pretty cool

(From left to right: Nina, Keziah, Naomi, Me, Esther, Lindsay, Laney, Brooke, Lydia, Mallory)
All the girls.

Well, that was our last afternoon there, and we were SO sad to leave!  We will miss you all so much!!  

Love,

Han