Go Girl, It's your Birthday

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!  ON THIS DAY, 28 YEARS AGO, AT 4:00 IN THE AFTERNOON, YOU WERE ALL BLESSED CUZ I WAS BORN.  AND YES I'M WRITING IN ALL CAPS CUZ IT'S MY. DAY.

Instead of writing a post about how awesome I am, I asked the people who are closest to me to share their favorite stories about me:

From my Dad: My favorite story is the original "TED" story.  For Christmas I went from store to store looking for the hottest toy of the year....Teddy Ruxpin; the talking, story telling, book reading Teddy Bear.  Believing they would be plentiful, I waited until mid-December before I started my search.  Well after weeks of searching, I finally found the elusive bear!  So as I sat with my smug, self assured, "Father of the Year" smile knowing my child was going to just love this gift,  I was astonished to watch her begin to cry in fear of this robotic monster.  Little did I know Crystal was deadly afraid of large puppets and even more so automated puppets.  Needless to say, Teddy was returned the next day.


From my Sister: I don't have a favorite story of Crystal, but here are some of the highlights: 

• Pushing me off the counter as a baby
• Pulling a knife on me as a youngster
• Sneaking into Crystal's room after bedtime
• Riding on a jet ski in Aruba and Crystal singing "Sweet Caroline" the entire time because she was scared
• Getting our matching Sorella tattoos

From my Mom: My favorite story of Crystal was at the baccalaureate for her high school graduation. The graduation speaker, the pastor of the church, was in the middle of his speech/sermon when he said "The other day, Crystal said..."  I was terrified because I know Crystal and her mouth is sometimes no holds barred.  Luckily, he was referencing a conversation they had where she brought up some really important information, but for a few seconds...I'm pretty sure I stopped breathing.

From my Godmother: My favorite Crystal story is when she was in my Primary Sunday School class, and our then very talkative Pastor stopped by and in his usual style, talked forever to a group of 4-9 year olds.  Upon finishing his talk, he asked if there were any questions.  No one spoke a word.  He then asked if anyone knew what he was talking aobut, and My Lil Diva spoke up.  "My Dad says nobody ever knows what you are talking about," and if that was not enough, she said "my Dad says you go on forever, last Sunday 52 minutes, the Sunday before 48 minutes," and she then proceeded to count down the number of minutes of his last 4 or 5 sermons.  The Pastor vanished, and never returned to the Primary class again.    

Youth Director at Church: My favorite Crystal story was from my days as the Youth Director at our church.  The group was having a conversation on being responsible, respectful, no drinking alcoholo or doing drugs when Crystal asked "Do you drink alcholol?" and I stated well yes, I do Crystal, sometimes.  She proceeded to say it's ok because so does my mom but she calls it "Mommy Juice."  I fell in love with her right then and there...