Weekend of strangers and a birthday.

This weekend was good, but different and a little odd. For some reason, we had a lot of parties/events this weekend, that all ended up on the same weekend, where we didn't really know anyone.

Friday night we hung out at my parent's house and celebrated my sister's birthday. Karlie is turning 19! Karlie, you are a great sister, and I am so blessed and proud to call you mine. It used to annoy me that you wanted to buy the same clothes as me, and always tried to sneak in and listen to my phone calls/read my diary, but I'm glad you did. I'm glad you wanted to be like me and I'm glad you wanted to be around me. I remember you wearing that black leotard with the metallic silver heart on it for about six months, dancing around the house and making up "shows" that we would all have to come sit and watch. I'm so glad we got to grow up together, and that we still have a good relationship today. I'm excited for all the years to come together! You are sweet, kind, compassionate, talented, hard working, and have a beautiful heart for Christ. As I age, the tables turn, as I want to dress young and hip like you, listen in on your phone calls, and follow you around with all the cool stuff you do. :)

Feeding Karlie a bottle- what a good sister I was. :)

Classic example of dressing alike. Who else had to wear matching Fast Friends outfits with their siblings? I'm pretty sure we were at Disney World for the first time. (I am also wearing clip on sunglasses attached to my real glasses. Super cool.)

Vacation in St. Maarten 2007

Vacation in Michigan 2008

Spring break in Cancun 2009 (Trying sushi for the first time!)

Spring Break in Arizona 2010 (Eating blue slushies- classy!)

My college graduation 2011

Thanks for always being there with me, sister!

(Obviously that paragraph doesn't apply to the "weekend of strangers." Ha.)

Saturday we had an all alumni party of where I went to high school. It turned out better than I thought it would, but there weren't that many people there and a lot of the people that were there I wasn't that close with. They did have a lot of old pictures scattered around, which was fun to look at, and definitely made it better than people just standing there! Overall we had a good time, which was nice! (Kley was a trooper, as he really didn't know anyone! He had met a couple of the people, but not many.)

After that party we headed to another! Kley's aunt/uncle live in town (she is also the pastor at my family's church, so I knew them growing up as well), and it was his uncle's 40th birthday party. We hung out there for awhile, but we didn't really know anybody. Kley's other aunt and uncle came from Pella, but other than that we didn't know anyone (recognized a few people from church, but not enough to join their table).

Sunday night we had a BBQ at the house of the worship director at Valley, where we go to church. They had flown in a guy they are looking at hiring, and wanted to invite a bunch of the worship team over to meet him. So, again, I didn't know anybody, but was nice to meet some faces that I had seen on stage and get to know some new people!

Kley and I jokingly called it the "weekend of strangers" as we were getting ready on Sunday, although it really wasn't bad!

Today I started packing for our trip to Colorado on Saturday, and laid out on my parent's deck for awhile with my sister and read.

Hope you all had a good weekend too!