My 21st [full of surprises] birthday

Wow! So much has happened since my last post that I don’t even know where to begin!

I guess the biggest thing is…I’m finally 21! After two and a half years years of dating a guy who is overage, it’s great to finally know I am able to drink a glass of wine with John. June 4th turned out to be a fun celebration by the end of the day, but my 21st got off to a rocky start.

Right when my roommates and I thought our apartment couldn’t get any worse, we awoke to soaking wet carpet, a collapsed bathroom ceiling and water-filled drywall.

While this may not seem like a fun time, Libby and I got a kick out of it because it was clearly the icing on the cake of our nasty apartment! After a few hours of tracking down a few different maintenance men and plumbers, the ball finally got rolling on getting our flood taken care of thanks to my all-star TFAS supervisors.

I met Larry the plumber (yes, that was really his name and he was wonderfully helpful) and a few other maintenance guys who got the problem fixed super quickly. After they set-up some super intense fans to dry out our flood, I headed to work and was greeted some roses sent from John!

Our collapsed, leaking ceiling

Notice the water bubble inside of our drywall, surrounded by water damage

Since my birthday was our last day in the office before the students arrived, we went straight into a logistics meeting when I arrived at work. As soon as it was over, I was surprised with a delicious ice cream cake from my coworkers!

If that wasn’t enough, Emily (my “supervisor” who is simply awesome) planned a super fun happy hour at Public Bar after work. I had my first SoCo shot, which in my opinion was much better than tequila (I need to work my way up to it!). After some venting with the coworkers, all of the PAs and I headed back to Georgetown to move into our new apartment!

You would think this would be comical because of happy hour, but I can honestly say we were fine due to our greasy, delicious dinner at Public Bar. After an exhausting day we were thrilled to walk into our semi-updated apartment! New cabinets complete with a clean sink and somewhat nice carpets were such a great surprise that Jayne, Libby, Calleine and I started jumping up and down screaming in delight of our new digs.

We unloaded as fast as we could and even though we were exhausted, decided to go to Old Glory simply because it was my 21st. I had my first Long Island Iced Tea presented in a mason jar that made me miss Georgia. Needless to say we left shortly after and crashed in our apartment.

Once morning rolled around, I Googled what was actually in my Long Island Iced Tea and had a laugh when I remembered the bartender telling me “Goodnight” after learning that was my drink of choice on my 21st! The girls and I got ready quickly and headed over to Georgetown Cupcake to see if they had any “secret” cupcakes of the day left.

For those of you who are in the DC area this summer and don’t know yet, Georgetown Cupcake has a secret flavor of the day that they broadcast on Twitter or Facebook.

All you have to is order the cupcake by name and you get it for free! The cupcake we got was Strawberry Lava Fudge and it was nothing but delicious! After literally inhaling the cupcakes, Calleine and Jayne went their separate ways and Libby and decided to window shop M Street.

We checked out some wine we couldn’t afford at Dean & DeLuca, walked through the ritzy mall where I used a gift certificate my mom got me for my birthday and debated buying cute dresses at Zara. I did make one satisfying purchase, some great gold, cork bottom sandals from Bandolino! Last summer I found a great deal on some white sandals that I wore out by August. Since we were walking by, I just couldn’t resist.

Sunday marked and insane move-in day that I was glad to get over with. The other PAs and I woke up early to place signs around campus and the roads surrounding it and we greeted from some parents! It was a quick lesson on how to react to things as they come; a lesson that was very valuable throughout the day.

After checking in most of our 82 students, Emily and I led a breakout session and headed over to a massive pizza party for all 400 students from all four institutes. That was an experience to say the least! Although stressful, it was really fun to meet students and learn that I have a connection with them. There were a handful of students who were from North Carolina and I really enjoyed talking with them about what they love about my home state and to learn that we have some of the same friends.

Sunday flew by and the day ended with a celebratory trip to The Tombs with some of the staff. What a fun time – I am so thankful for such a fun coworkers.

I am so looking forward to what this summer will bring. I’m sure it will be an exciting, stressful and laughter-filled summer of memories.