Birthday pics

I had such a blessed 30th birthday - particularly as it was a birthday I've been dreading for about 6 months!! I learnt to embrace it and thorouhly enjoyed it!!

So the first thing was coming into my office the day before my birthday and some great friends had decorated my desk.......and my handbag........and my mousemat and bought me a gorgeous boquet of flowers and a balloon.....they are awesome and such a blessing to call friends!

In the evening I had youth group where they managed to keep me in the kitchen making pancakes while they decorated the church with party banners, set up a powerpoint and smuggled in a cake......sadly I don't have any pictures of this!!

On my birthday I was super blessed to spend the day with a great friend, Sharon. We went to Delamere forest for a 3 mile walk (got a little lost but all added to the fun!), then went onto Blakemere craft centre where we had lunch and wandered around the shops - it was fab ......... just such a blessing to spend such a special day chilling with a friend.

By the time I got home after meeting my Dad, brother, Amanda and the kids for coffee at McDonalds, I was ushered upstairs and told I wasn't to come down until someone came to get me. I got called downstairs by Kathy and there were about 15 people there to celebrate my birthday with me. The moto of the evening was "wear a dishy dress and bring a dressy dish".......we had a great time with loads of lovely food, giggles and some games as well........it was great! Dad was the one that had ordered that gorgeous birthday cake for me........I did end up sending everyone home with a big slab of it so it wouldn't go to waste!

This is what my bedroom looked like by the end of the evening with all the gifts that I received......it was nuts!!

A couple of weekends later, 7 of us then went to stay in a cottage just outside Caernarfon which is about 1 hour away from here........we had a fab relaxing weekend and the cottage was just gorgeous to stay in.......thank you for a fab weekend ladies, just a pity that Katie's missing from this photo!

Anyway, that was all the celebrations.......we also celebrated Dads 65th birthday which was another meal out and another birthday!! Nuts.

After dreading turning the big 3-0 so much it seems wierd to think that it's been and gone; it was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not really! I'm being positive though; I suppose the loneliness of being single is the thing that has scared/plagued me so much and now I'm attempting to embrace that freedom of being single at this time of my life.........some plans include a photography course with my new Canon 450d digital slr camera, perhaps a trip to California in October and treating myself to day trips and coffee and cake out without worrying what other people think about you being by yourself!!

Birthday

I know I said I'd blog about my 30th birthday and I do plan too.......just waiting on a friend to pass some photos to me.......I had a fab time and the best birthday ever......I have some awesome friends!

Baking for money!!

It's not that the recession is that bad that I've had to take on a second job I promise!!

More to do with the fact that we've now booked to take 9 youth and 4 leaders including myself to Romania in the summer to help with a charity called Project Romanian Rescue. We'll be there for 8 days and will be doing both practical work and social work with the kids of the charity. I'm excited and majorly nervous at the same time!!

It's costing about £500 per head to go and all the leaders have to raise/provide their own money. I am therefore baking for the lovely people in my workplace and recommending a doantion of £1 per cake. It's been going really well, I've done it twice so far and each time raised around £75. So hopefully I'll be baking tomorrow afternoon and doing another stall on Monday morning. It's actually quite enjoyable and a great way to raise the profile of the youth group and illustrate that not all youth are 'bad' as the media often portrays them!! Here are some pictures I took of the one I did before Christmas! There was Chocolate Brownies, Mini Victoria Sponges, Lemon Drizzle cake, Cupcakes with green icing to make the Christmas tree and Coffee andWalnut cake......mmmmm......delicious!!