Friday, February 13, 2015

Birthdays

Coach Mandy, before she was Coach Mandy!  This was taken during the construction of our dugouts during her senior year.  I thought I would give her a shout out since today is her birthday!
When I started my second semester at Mary Baldwin as a freshman, spending my 19th birthday away from my family was one of the things that I was dreading.  Both my sister and I are February babies.  On February 4, 1996 I turned 3 and on February 9th, I became a big sister!  February was always filled with presents and birthday cakes, using my great grandma’s homemade chocolate icing recipe that is to die for!

So turning 19 didn’t sound too appealing… especially since on my 19th birthday cadets from the Virginia Military Institute were coming to help our team assemble our new dugouts. I knew that I was going to spend that Saturday freezing as we spent the day outside.  In case you can’t tell, construction is NOT my idea of a good time so I knew it was going to be a long cold day.  Don’t get me wrong, I was ecstatic about the new dugouts, just not about putting them together!

While it was a long, cold day I had fun.  It was fabulous watching our dugouts come together and to see how nice they looked. 

Our dugouts were put together with wooden pegs rather than nails.  For a donation, you could decorate one of the pegs.  I am fairly certain that Coach Mandy, an art major, was responsible for the lovely decoration of this peg.  I, however, take all the credit for the photo!
One of the things that I had figured out already is that Coach Shelton always celebrates birthdays.  Now, with a big softball team, it seems as if we are sometimes celebrating birthdays every week or two.  I knew we were having lunch with everyone after our construction, but I did not expect Coach to come out with a huge birthday cake to feed everyone.  It was the biggest birthday cake I have ever gotten in my life.  Not quite my great grandma’s chocolate icing, but it was just as special!


The infamous cake!
The past three years, someone from home has come to visit me for my birthday so I have gotten to taste that delicious chocolate icing.  Instead of losing the traditions that I once had for birthdays, new ones have been formed.  Sometimes, it is the small things—or a huge cake—that makes the day special.

Group photo from construction!

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