Part 1: Winner of the buttons and part 2: UNEXPECTED SURPRISE from Friday!!!

PART 1:
And the winner of the little buttons is Amy Karol!!! Yay Amy!!!! Congratulations!! !This time I asked Natalie to open the book in order to find out who the winner was and she went directly to page 138! Thank you Natalie and thank you sooo much to each one of you for participating in this game!!! There will be more coming!

PART 2:
SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE!!!!
Oh my friends! I have something wonderful to share with you about my birthday on Friday! Remember how I told you that Bill and I were going to have our special dinner at night at my favorite restaurant? Well, what I didn’t know is that a SURPRISE PARTY was waiting for me at the place!!!! I could not believe it!!! Bill invited four couples, each one of them is special and unique and I just love them so much!. They all have very busy lives and putting everybody together in the same room was like a miracle. Imagine how I felt! I could not stop smiling, I was sooo happy!

This is the second most special birthday that I ever had in my life. In order to understand why this SURPRISE party meant so much for me I need to go a little back in time. Growing up in Cuba I never had a birthday party, not when I was one or two or three… and I never got presents because we just couldn’t afford it. As a little girl my birthday was never a special day so I grew up that way and it felt like the most normal thing ever. Birthday parties are a celebration of life and I imagine that because we had a hard life then we didn’t have a lot to celebrate. I became a teenager: 13, 14, and then 15!

In the Latino culture turning 15 for a girl is an important event and even the poorest families try to put together a party or something small for the birthday girl but I just knew that we were not going to be able to afford it and I was absolutely fine with it. And here is the story of what happened next:

The day when I turned 15 I just went to school as every normal day and I even forgot to tell my friends that it was my birthday. We had our Math class, then Spanish class, everything was completely normal and then OUT OF THE BLUE EVERYBODY GOT UP AND STARTED SINGING HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. I was absolutely in shock! I didn’t know what to do other than cry. But that was only the beginning! Immediately after the happy birthday song and in a perfect coordination my classmates moved the tables and the chairs around and created a big circle in the classroom, then like pure magic there was salsa music and a big cake, I didn’t have time to process what was going on, it really took me like 15 minutes to understand that they had put a surprise birthday party together for me. What the teachers and my classmates didn’t know is that that was my very fist birthday party ever since I was born. I can’t even describe you the huge impact that this celebration had in my life. All the love that I got from my friends and teachers that day turned into a special fuel that gave me enough energy to go through my teenage years.

Having my second surprise birthday party 22 years later after my first one, under completely different circumstances was something so meaningful. I was telling Bill the other day that right now I am going through one of the most difficult times in my life because everyday is a challenge. But on the other hand I find myself surrounded of so much love and this makes a whole difference, all this wonderful energy gives me the impulse to get up everyday and do my best as a mother, as a wife and as a creative person. I feel like the luckiest girl ever and all I want is to give all that love back in every possible way, being this blog one of them. I want to say thank YOU for all the beautiful birthday wishes in my Friday post and THANK YOU for taking the time to visit this place because it means the world to me.

THANK YOU to my beautiful friends for coming to the dinner celebration and a very special THANK YOU for my dear friend MARGIE because what you did for my birthday was something that I will absolutely treasure forever!!! Much love from the bottom of my heart to everyone!

Elsita :)

Comments

[shael]

How incredible... it is amazing the things we take for granted in this life. When I read your stories they inspire me so much. It is nice to know that you are a real human being and I appreciate your honesty. Thank-you for sharing your incredible joy that I find to be so infectious. Happy 37!

[shael]

How incredible... it is amazing the things we take for granted in this life. When I read your stories they inspire me so much. It is nice to know that you are a real human being and I appreciate your honesty. Thank-you for sharing your incredible joy that I find to be so infectious. Happy 37!

[nesting emily]

what an amazing story...it explains some of the sense of you I have gotten so far. you seem so generous and celebratory in the everyday. I am so happy you were able to have another wonderful suprise party. Happy birthday and I know I feel really lucky to have you as part of my creative circle Elsita!!