Birthday Festivities

Last week was a whirlwind of celebrations. I am so grateful for our amazing friends here in Ghana and feel blessed to have crossed paths with such lovely people. Thursday was my 31st birthday and was a day of well-wishes, finished off with a tasty dinner out at an Italian restaurant with Dan. Towards the end of our meal, the sky opened up and dumped rain for several hours. We made a run for it to get a taxi home and slept soundly to the sounds of the rain. That rain may have flooded a bedroom overnight but, we will let that slide.

Friday, after work, a group of us got together at a new place called Kona Bar and Grill in Osu. We had a going away party for one of Dan's coworkers. Janni was on a 6 month exchange program from Copenhagen, Denmark. She has now gone home but it was a nice last night for all of us to get together. It was a surreal moment in the car to look around and realize none of the 5 of us in the car would still be in Ghana by the end of the year: Janni back to Denmark, Gabby back to Kenya, Veronica back to Uganda and Dan and me back to the States. All in all, it was a nice night with good music and good company.

Saturday was a lazy afternoon on my part. Dan, however, woke up and began preparing a birthday cake for me. A few weeks ago, I showed him a photo of a birthday cake shaped like the Death Star from Star Wars. He said "I could totally make that". I politely accepted his challenge and he spent the entire afternoon baking a cake and mixing frosting from scratch. His efforts were truly impressive. The final product was delicious, though maybe slightly lacking in the aesthetics department. It's the thought that counts and I greatly appreciate the thought and the effort... and the multiple sugar rushes that occurred over the weekend.

Saturday evening, Hannah and Robin came down to spend a few days with us. We were going out to dinner that night except for one small problem: the water pump was broken. They turned off the water at about 3:30pm and water was not restored until 9am the following day. Hannah, Robin and I decided to take our pre-dinner showers in the pool since we had no running water. I have to say we all looked pretty good despite maybe a slight waft of chlorine.

There were 10 of us at dinner (left to right in the photo below): Veronica, Selasi, Joe, Sharon, Dan, me, Robin, Rosemary, Gabby and Hannah. The food and drinks were delicious and the conversation was also very enjoyable. We left the restaurant around 11:30 and all headed home after being out the night before and a long Saturday in the kitchen on Dan's part.

Sunday was a day full of movies and lounging. The four of us got up and had breakfast, played volleyball in the pool, took naps and relaxed. It was a very nice birthday weekend filled with quality time with some of my favorite people.