Sentimental Sunday

Happy 25th Birthday, Chris!

I've had the idea for a while to do some throw back blogging, to document some of the cool things I did prior to popping out 2 babies and becoming a stay at home mom.  While searching for a picture to use in a photobook today, I came across the folder "Chris 25th birthday" and was suddenly taken back in time to a pretty hilarious night.

As I said, prior to babies and full time parenting, we had some adventures.  One such adventure involved living for a year on a ship in Croatia that was being retrofitted for use in Christian ministry.  Chris worked on the ship's IT network and I taught the ex-pat kids of other workers onboard.

So, Chris was turning 25.  A kind of boring birthday, if you live in America.  I mean, 21 pretty much marks the last birthday you have to attain before you can do something you previously haven't been legal to do.  However, while it is a somewhat boring birthday in America, it is a fabulously exciting birthday in Croatia!  In Croatia, when you turn 25, you can finally drive the world's crappiest van.

By some strange twist of bureacracy, the insurance legalities prevented anyone from driving this van before they turned 25:

Maybe it had something to do with the German welder hanging out the window?  I digress...

But you could drive this amazingly shiny, new van at the tender age of 23:

What a weird coincidence - it's the same German welder!

So anyways, ye olde crappy van required you to be 25 to drive it.  And since it was pretty much the last thing left of earth that he was limited from doing only because of his age, Chris had been anxiously awaiting his turn to finally get behind the wheel (not). 

I wanted to do SOMETHING for his birthday, but what?  We only got $20 each in "personal money," most of which I blew on things like shampoo and deoderant every month.  A celebration had to be cheap, and I had to plan ahead, so I could arrange to sign out one of the team vans and go somewhere.  Suddenly, it hit me...

PARTY IN THE VAN!!!

So my two besties, Bee and Ski (they call me Zee, if you're wondering), and I hatched the plan.  We'd skip out of work early to prepare the partymobile.  Here's an idea of what went into that:

Zee and Bee

Bee and Ski

We filled the van with balloons, grabbed some pizzas from the restaurant down the street, and convinced Chris that we needed him to leave Bible study to check on something in the driveway.  (Sorry, Jesus!)

Then we made him drive us all over town while we partied like Asian rock stars from the 1980s.  (get it?  because we were in a really old Toyota van??? har har)

A good time was had by all.

L-R: Ski, Tobi, Walter, Chris C, Chris G, Bee

And just so everyone else on the team would be wildly jealous of the birthday bash, we left the back of the van looking like this:

These balloons stayed in the van for at least a month

So it just goes to show... you can actually have fun in an old van, without needing to be snuck back home after curfew!