Birthday Surprises

Happy Tuesday everyone!  Hope you're all having a great week.  As some of you may know, I had a hard time transitioning to life away from home when I first came to Saint Mike's, but my group of friends has helped me immensely and I now refer to them as my family away from home, or my SMC family.

As everyone knows, birthdays can be very special days.  Last week was my roommate Emma's birthday, so my SMC family decided to go all out to celebrate Emma and make her feel as special as we could.  The original plan was to go to dinner at Sloane, which is the cafeteria on North Campus, where we live.  Sloane is great because it's like a real restaurant - you have to make reservations, and once you get there you are served an appetizer, entree, and dessert!  On Emma's birthday morning (my friends and I have now decided that Emma's birthday is a holiday because the celebration never ends), my friend Cait secretly asked me at breakfast if I wanted to run to Shaw's with her after lunch to get a cake and some balloons to decorate Emma's and my room.  I of course said yes!  After we got out of class, we had the fastest lunch possible and then took the shuttle back up North to get Cait's car, then went to Shaw's.  We got Emma a cake and had one of the Shaw's employees decorate it (she was so nice!) as well as some balloons, apple cider (a drink we all love, especially in the fall), and flowers.  Once we got back, Cait and I raced to decorate my room with the balloons and some streamers.  We wanted to be finished before Emma got back from class so it was both stressful and exciting!

Fortunately, we were successful.  Emma was completely surprised by the decorations!  We had a great time at Sloane, and when we got back we had cake and spent some time together as a family.  Amanda, our wonderful RA, took some pictures for us:

Emma being all excited about our decorated room!

 

The fam :)

Fortunately, the fun didn't end there.  One of our friends, Vick, who transferred to Keene State, came to visit us this weekend, so on Sunday we all went out to breakfast at one of our favorite spots in Burlington, The Skinny Pancake.

Cait, Alex, Vick, Emma, me, Lindy

Today, Emma's dad was able to come up to see her and he was kind enough to take us all out for dinner at another restaurant in Burlington called Leunig's.  I had steak (my favorite food) which was absolutely delicious!!

Unfortunately Emma's birthday present from her SMC family still hasn't come in the mail yet, but that's okay because it gives us an excuse to keep celebrating until it does!  Emma has been so grateful for everything we've done for her, and it makes us feel so special that we got to spend her birthday with her and make it extra special.  Special events like these remind me how lucky I am to have found such a wonderful group of friends at SMC - I couldn't be luckier!

Best of luck to everyone with all their work this week - I know students at SMC are looking forward to our much needed Thanksgiving break next week!

As always, thanks for reading and have a lovely day!