Third Birthday in a Row

So for the third Sunday in a row it was someone's birthday. This time it was Angie's 21st, so it was slightly more special! 

Because Jireh was helping with the children's service and Aonghas still sleeping at home (wasted after waking up really early to farewell James at the airport!), I wasn't too sure whether we'd be able to surprise her with a cake. However, I managed to come out of the service halfway through to ring Aonghas, partially to wake him up and get him to come to church, and also to get him to buy a cake on the way there.

Aonghas did manage to buy a cake and bring it to church, but by the time he got there the service had finished and Angie had already gone to Sunday School, so I gathered as many youth groupers as I could find and we headed for the Sunday School class and surprised her with a rendition of Happy Birthday and the cake!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNh3Ua_0IKY)

For our last Sunday School class of the year, we didn't do any study and instead just talked about random stuff like...Asian drama! (I was sorta the one who brought up that subject...)

Last week Angie and I had also managed to persuade our teacher to let us order food along with the other Sunday School classes since it was our last class of the year, so Tim, a Sunday School teacher of another class came over to take our order for McDonald's. We just had McDonald's for breakfast with Jireh, so we'd be having McDonald's twice in one day! I originally ordered one burger as I still wasn't feeling so well after the morning (and still being slightly bloated from the night before) but they must've thought I wanted the combo, so I got a combo!

We had to go caroling outside some Asian grocery stores after lunch (I'll post about that later on). When we got back to church, I gave Angie this birthday present I had bought for her - this teddy bear container with jelly in it. I remembered her pointing out to it one time when we went to this Asian bakery in the city one time when we were having lunch together. It sounded like she was surprised I remembered/knew what she wanted (I hope?), but hopefully she liked it anyway.

Almost a Non-Farewell

This morning my brothers and I went to the airport to farewell James, one of the guys in our youth group who was moving to Australia to live FOREVER.

Because our cousin Janice had her 21st birthday and it finished late, we didn't really bother sleeping. OK well I got a little bit of a nap on the couch before I had to wake up at about 2am to have a shower. I rang Jireh, one of the other guys from church who would be going with Tim and Gabrielle our youth group leaders, as well as Andrew and Ben. He sounded like a zombie over the phone, but that's understandable, considering he had stayed up all night playing FIFA!

We left at quarter to three in the morning. I drove the car, to give Aonghas a chance to work on a video about the children's summer programme he had to present at the church service in the morning. It was raining though, so he was too concerned about my driving to be able to spend time working on the video!

We got to the airport slightly before 4am to find the group waiting outside the Air New Zealand check-in counters. James and his family hadn't arrived yet! They had already been at the airport for a while before we arrived, so we waited until I got a reply to a text message I sent James' dad, something along the lines of:

"We're still at home packing, about to leave"


They were required to check in right now, so we were a little worried! We decided to go upstairs and explore the airport to pass the time away. We checked out a few souvenir shops and then rested on this mini 'mock' stadium grandstand (advertising the Rugby World Cup 2011). We sat there for almost an hour, just watching people pass by, talking and also playing games.

It was now almost 5am and James still hadn't arrived. Jireh and I decided to go back downstairs to see if we could find James and his family. We couldn't spot them, and were about to give up, when we came across him on our way to the toilet! We texted the others and they soon came down to meet him.

They went to the check-in counters to check in with all their luggage. They had heaps of luggage with them seeing as they're leaving the country for good. That's probably why it took almost an hour for them to check in! We were just standing around watching them, worrying and hoping they would be done soon! They were required to get to the departure gate by 6.05am!

With about ten minutes till the gate closed, James and his family had finally finished checking in. They gave us some muesli bars that they weren't able to take with them (over the weight limit I think!), and then we headed upstairs to the departure gate! By now the sun had started to rise!

James said his goodbyes to us, we had a group photo, and then they left.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc_W6iXqQfg)

By now we were really tired. We went back to Henderson where we had breakfast at McDonald's. We all had Massive McMuffin Combo's. The Massive McMuffin was surprisingly massive (usually the pictures are quite misleading!). We were zombies by now, dying for some sleep!

As soon as we got home, Aonghas and Hamish just fell asleep on the couches while I wasn't feeling the best and tried to find somewhere to get some rest as well! It felt as if the day was over, when in fact it was just the start of what would be a very long day!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi6VJiocf5k)

Janice's 21st

Tonight was my cousin Janice's 21st birthday. We definitely were coming after we missed her older brother Greg's 21st due to a confusion. It was funny how in the weeks leading up to her birthday party they would always tease and joke about whether we'd make it or not!

Anyway Aonghas was asked to make a video montage for her birthday party and had stayed up all night the night before. He still hadn't finished it by morning, but managed to have a bit of sleep before we all had to attend a training session for our church's children's summer programme for next month.

He managed to finish the video but still had to render it, which would take another half an hour, and the party had already started so we left ahead of him.

When we got to the Rugby League Club in Te Atatu Peninsula where it was held, everyone was there and our Aunty Sina was presenting Janice with a present. We were desperately hoping speeches hadn't already taken place! Fortunately it was just that present and speeches would be given after dinner which was to come soon!

I had to go behind the bar to see what connections were available for the laptop to plug in to the projector and sound system. It looked as though the connection required could only be found on my laptop, so I had to ring Aonghas and tell him to bring both our laptops and down-convert his video at the party (my laptop can't handle Full-HD videos!).

While we were waiting for Aonghas to come, dinner was served. It was buffet and we were allowed seconds, which was nice! There was plenty of food there anyway. There was deep-fried chicken, salads, sweet and sour pork, buns, meat, noodles and other stuff. It was all really yummy! We saved a plate of food for Aonghas, who soon arrived.

The performances and speeches soon started, with Janice's cousins from Australia doing a Samoan dance, and some other relatives doing a hip-hop dance.

Some of her relatives sang a song, and then Aonghas presented his video montage which was quite emotional for Janice. I can understand, after Aonghas made one for me for my 21st too!

Janice's relatives then sang a song for her before speeches started. We heard from Janice's high school friends, boss from the army, family and softball friends about how she was a really friendly person, and would always check to see if people were OK out on the softball pitch even if they were on the opposing side! We also heard about some of her more...embarrassing moments which I probably shouldn't repeat on here! 

It was time to sing Happy Birthday to Janice and watch her blow out the candles on her cake, of which she had five - each one had photos of her with different sides of the family. 

After the candles were blown out, Janice did this dance which is a apparently a tradition, and all these guys came and joined her and took their shirts off! It was quite wild! I hope Janice enjoyed herself! 

After the dance, dessert was served. There were quite a few cakes, which was enough to make me feel bloated! I quite enjoyed it!

After dessert, the lights were turned down and it was time for dancing! Some of us weren't really into dancing and it was getting a bit late, so when the Brens (the other cousins) decided to leave, we decided to go with them.

It was a really good party and it was a great celebration for Janice! I hope she had a great night and relived many memories!

Happy Birthday Janice! 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEoSoIVgRY8)

Preparing for Christmas

Our church's Christmas play/concert is fast approaching, so for the past few Fridays we've been rehearsing our youth group's part of the play. We're doing the nativity scene. Aonghas is playing Joseph and Angie is playing Mary, while yours truly will be playing...the Angel!! I also have to provide sound effects with my cello!  Just call me the sound effects guy..

Jenny, one of the girls in our youth group who steered our youth group's earlier farewell musical for Karvin has been directing us again this year. She's been doing a good job, and seems to know what she wants.

So anyway I seem to be having trouble remembering my lines! I think it's because my lines aren't exactly what you'd call modern day conversational English if you get my drift. That makes it a whole lot harder for me to memorise! I asked if I could just improvise, but I was asked to stick to the script because I'm bound to say something PC!

(Thanks On for all the photos in this post!)

Because I'm an angel, I have to be high up, so I'll be standing up above the 'Crying Room', which is kinda cool as I get a bit of a birds-eye view of down below. It gets a little boring sometimes though since I'm only in the first and last scene.

We had a dress rehearsal tonight, and even though I screwed up my lines in the first run-through, I managed to get through them all the second time, despite the girls picking on me, complaining that I missed ONE single word!

Next week is our final, final dress rehearsal before the big performance on Christmas Eve!

Here's a taste of what we've been rehearsing:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ4qxdJmlH4)

Pre-Christmas/Post-Exam Dinner

My group of high school friends and I have sort of realised that catching up over dinner might be a good thing to do a bit more regularly, and so that's what we did again tonight! We decided to catch up over dinner at Da Vinci's Restaurant in the city.

I managed to convince my mum to let me drive to the city on my own, and you can tell by this blog post that I made it there and back safe and sound! I originally thought there would be parking right by the restaurant, but when I got there I couldn't find any so I had to drive around the place several times before I found a car park a few streets down!

I entered this restaurant that had a different name. I thought maybe this restaurant went by another name, so I asked if the restaurant was Da Vinci's, but it turned out that Da Vinci's was downstairs! 

I wandered down the driveway and spotted my friends through the window! 

There were only about eight of us, but that was all good! It was pretty cool catching up with a few of them who I hadn't talked to in quite a while!

As it was an Italian restaurant, I thought I'd try something different, and so I chose the Gnocchi Primavera, which tasted quite nice! It had some potato, salmon and some peas! I wish there was a lot more though, but then again these sorts of restaurants focus on quality rather than quantity right?

For dessert most of us decided to forgo the ice-cream and instead just have a drink. I tried a mochaccino which didn't have a heart in it :( but that's OK, it tasted good!

(Thanks Jane for this photo!)

I had to leave soon as my driving curfew (since I'm on a restricted license) was at 10pm. I can say I got home just after 10pm but didn't come across any police so that's a relief!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWHzz-jnTZ0)