Happy 18th Birthday Carly! March 21st!

The celebration is not over! I think the girls got done ice skating around 3:30pm and by 5:30pm they needed to be ready for the "Mormon Prom". The prom is a multi stake event, and a great allternative to the real prom and a much safer environment. All the boys in our ward invited all of the girls in our ward to go to the prom. I think they enjoyed going together as a big group. They had a nice dinner at the Campbell's home, went to the prom, and then came back to our house for dessert. Can I just say...it was an incredibly busy weekend!

Carly's big surprise!! Her friend Connie, from Seattle, flew in to surprise her for her birthday. We have been keeping this a surprise for months. Tom picked Connie up from the airport while the girls were ice skating. He got her to the rink right before their session was over. Tom, Connie and I stood near the opening of the rink and just kind of waved casually as Carly skated by. When Carly figured out that Connie was standing next to us she skated over to us as fast as she could to give Connie a giant hug!! It was so much fun. We caught the whole thing on video - check it out at the bottom of this post.




Phase Two of the Birthday Party. Carly invited her best girl friends over for breakfast Sat. morning. I made German pancakes - I thought it would be fun to have something a little different, and they are yummy! I thought it would also be fun to set a fancy table with real dishes rather than just using paper. After the girls stomach's were full, they watched the movie Twilight. They each took their turn swooning over the actor that plays Edward. Oh to be a teenager again!! After the movie the girls decided to go ice skating. They had a lot of fun...I just kept worrying that Carly was going to fall with her broken arm. I don't know how Carly gets me to agree to things that probably don't make the most sense. She is very convincing.

Carly said this was her favorite picture of the afternoon. This was the first of the many parties that surrounded Carly's 18th Birthday! Carly is definitely our "PARTY" planner. She invited "40 of her Best Friends" over for lunch on Friday. As Carly, Papa and I sat on the sofa waiting for Carly's friends to arrive, she looked at us and said, "I hope they show up." She was getting a little nervous and thought it would be embarrassing if she didn't get a good showing. Those words barely left her lips and the flood gates opened, we had somewhere between 33 and 35 kids come over for lunch. I have never seen kids burn through 9 feet of Subway sandwich as fast as these kids did. Luckily I was smart enough to hold a little of the sandwich back in the kitchen, or my dad and I would have had nothing to eat. It was the best kind of party, the kids came - they ate - and they were gone within the hour! Papa was a lot of help and support and had a good time teasing the kids. As the kids were leaving, he would tell them that the principal just called and was wondering where they all were.