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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Rachel's 18!

Last month the ward choir sang on my birthday and this month we sang on Rachel's birthday. That means that (1) we get to sing, which is always fun and (2) we don't have afternoon practice, and it's kind of nice to get to have the rest of the day at home after church.

Rachel, Miriam, and Benjamin had a youth meeting after church, though, so they ended up coming home separately from the rest of us, anyway. And they brought Andie over to play games. 

Soon after Andie left, Grandpa and Darla arrived for dinner. Andrew and Benjamin had spent the entire afternoon making orange chicken (which was a whole lot of work, but which was also delicious). After dinner we opened presents, played Swoop (a game Grandpa and Darla played a lot on their cruise/bike trip through Europe this summer), and then had cake.

It was a very low-key birthday. Rachel also planned a few game nights around but not on her birthday so that she could hang out with friends but not have them do anything embarrassing like sing to her.

Here she is opening her gifts, which were all things for living on her own—a dough whisk...



...a little holder for paper to go on her desk (Andrew has a taller one on his desk and the kids are always running there for "bookmarks"—as you can see from Benjamin's expression, this is a very enviable gift)...


...a lemon juicer (which you can see on the couch)...and a toolkit!


Phoebe loves watching people open presents (only slightly less than she likes opening presents herself), so she had to sit next to Rachel. She has requested that she receive these exact items for her 18th birthday. We'll see how that goes in 15 years.

Here's Grandpa and Darla with Alexander and Zoë:


Here's Rachel by her birthday sign:


And here she is with her cake (Andrew made it) and the birthday balloons behind her (we finally did all the summer birthdays on family night last week):


This birthday has felt like a hard birthday, I think...because here she is all grown up and heading off into the world! It doesn't seem fair or right. It's much scarier than sending her off to kindergarten was (and we all know I didn't do so well with sending my kids off to kindergarten...I made it through three and then was like, "I think I'll keep 'em, thank you!"). But, you know what? She's going to do great!

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