A Happy Birthday Indeed

So, I turned the big 3-2 Saturday...which directly coincided with Meet the Rebels day at Ole Miss.  It was really nice of them to have an event on my birthday, wasn't it?  We went last year and really enjoyed it, so we thought we'd give it a go again this year.

We headed out Saturday, and everyone (especially Korban!) was excited to be headed to Oxford.  The thing was held in the indoor practice facility, which is really nice.  It was packed out!  Much more so than last year, and it was crowded then.  The lines to get autographs from the football team were seriously out to the parking lot.  We decided there was no way we were going to stand in line that long for autographs, so we just milled around and looked for a while.  The kids checked out the bouncy houses.  They didn't actually get in them, just checked them out.  Selah climbed in for just a minute and decided those were too crowded too, but they had fun looking.

We saw the cheerleaders and got autographs and some of them remembered Selah from the Rebellete  camp.  "Who could forget those curls?" one of them commented.  It was sweet.  Selah was happy to see them too, and we went down the line with our poster getting the signatures.  At the end, they passed the poster to Selah and she looked at all the signatures scrawled on it, and then looked up and me and shouted "MOM!  WHY DID THEY WRITE ALL OVER MY PAPER?!?"  Oh my.

We were also able to get signatures from the women's volleyball team.  Korban was happy about that.  I think he flirted with them and witnessed to them.  He walked up, all smiles, and kept saying "Hi!" and "Nice to meet you," and then he told them "Jesus loves me!"  How cute is he?  They liked him and were sweet to him.

After hanging out there for a while, we headed back towards Corinth.  We were supposed to meet Brad's family for dinner that night.  His granddaddy went to heaven to be with his Savior a few weeks ago, and his grandmother recently spent some time in the hospital, so needless to say Brad's family has had a tough time of it lately.  We were meeting Brad's parents, his grandmother, his brother and his family, and our great-aunt at Dinner Bell.

I really thought since this wasn't technically for my birthday, even though it happened to fall on my birthday, I would get out of having everyone embarrass  sing to me in the restaurant.  I thought wrong!  I told Brad not to make a big deal out of it being my birthday, and not to even mention it to ANYBODY but especially not the wait staff, but apparently I forgot to threaten my brother-in-law.  They all ganged up against me to let everybody in the restaurant know I was another year older.

So when the waiters and waitresses rounded the corner, all clapping and singing the pepped up happy birthday song, I was shocked.  And by shocked I mean SHOCKED!  Luckily for all of you, my loving husband had his phone at the ready.  Brace yourself:

How you like that?  I look like a donkey!  EEEEE-ONNKKKK!!!!

So if you've ever felt like maybe you weren't photogenic or whatever, this should really boost your self-esteem.  The only thing that made me feel any better at all about this picture was when they passed it around the table to laugh at, my nephew Trevor said "Who is that?" so that gave me hope that I don't typically look like this.  Because I'd hate to have to jump off a bridge on my birthday...Good thing I'm not vain, right?  Honestly, I couldn't be too bummed about it.  I DID get a free dessert.  And at 32, a free dessert covers over a whole multitude of ugly pictures in my book. 

So, if you're retinas aren't scarred from that fun tidbit, I have some more pictures for you.  And these don't resemble farm animals, I promise.  (Hey, I just noticed that the "Hotty" part of the "Hotty Toddy shirt I'm wearing seems to be leaping off the page.  It's like it's mocking me!)

They are in the process of doing a lot of renovations and upgrades at Ole Miss.  My husband is extremely excited about this.  I think his favorite part was seeing all the things they had changed and added.  I might not have noticed if he hadn't have been jumping up and down and pointing them out to me, but I gotta admit it's pretty cool.  They even decorated with Fatheads!  (Although I'm pretty sure they don't call them Fatheads--ha!)

Oh, and Brad's other favorite part happened during mine and Selah's potty break, so I missed it.  He and Korban were waiting for us in the hallway and they got to see the whole football team come down the hall and enter the IPF through a "secret door" Brad says.  He swears it was all James Bondish, and they had to have their fingerprints scanned to gain access.  Oh, and "IPF" stand for "Indoor Practice Facility," in case you didn't know.  I did not know, but my husband was more than happy to tell me.  Anyway, my two boys were excited about seeing the players up close and personal
before everybody else.

We love Dexter McCluster, and although he wasn't there in person, we got a cute shot of Korban posing with his likeness.

Here's Selah doing her cheerleading thing.  She was happy about holding that pom-pon!

This is Selah getting the cheerleaders' autographs.  Or, as she saw it, allowing people bigger than her to scribble all over her pretty paper.  Oh, and she cracked me up too.  She saw her daddy rolling up his posters neatly and packing them away in the backpack, so she made sure to kneel down on the floor and roll hers up neatly too before she gave it to him to stash in the backpack for her.  

They let the fans go through the tunnel that the football team passes through to get out on the field on game day.  It was pretty cool!  Selah shot out like she was jet propelled!  We thought she was going to be a cheerleader, but she may join the football team instead.

Korban and I took a more laid-back approach, but we were still happy to be there.

Blue eyes and Ole Miss!!!

So all in all, I had a really great birthday, even if I did make the worst picture known to man.  I got to spend time with my loves and we enjoyed ourselves.  Here's to a great year!