This Day In History

• Jackie Robinson made his Major League debut and broke the color barrier in professional sports
• The unsinkable Titanic hit an iceberg and was capsized
• President Lincoln died
• And yours truly was born.

I'm not one to really like all the attention, but I do appreciate people remembering...so thanks for the birthday phone call to kick things off at midnight, Karen. You were also the earliest rememberer by far with the package prepped and sent more than a week ago. Thanks, Doug, for the text at 3:30 am, and various emails, texts, and happy smurfday well wishers. I do appreciate it. Some of my favorite birthday memories:

• Birthday in a box freshman year at BYU - I totally forgot about this one until I started thinking of this post. This was back when Dave's mom was more nice/less crazy and she sent a package of dumb games that for a lot of people would have been lame, but with our friends ended up being really fun and we played them all down in the cafeteria area by DT. I remember that one actually being really fun and if you guys (Dave, Laura, Brenna) remember, the pictures of that night with all of us have the girls with squirt guns and Dave and I have wet crotches. We weren't too old for that joke then, and somehow I think the same would be true today.
• First post-mission birthday. At BYU my birthday always comes at a crappy time - the last day of classes or the beginning of finals so for like three years in a row I had papers due the day of my birthday. Of course me being an idiot, I always stayed up all night the day of my birthday. My girlfriend had come into town and I was duped into thinking that we were going to Joe's Crab Shack to meet up with her boring family, but instead it ended up being all of my friends. That one surprised me...
• The next year I was dating Becca, and she and Dave "surprised" me by taking me to Chuck E. Cheese's. Sidenote - my first birthday was actually at Chuck E.'s. It wasn't much of a surprise because I knew that Doug and surprised Kristin with it recently, and I had a surprise the previous year so I did appreciate it, but I wasn't caught off guard. And then when we came back to our apartment I opened up the door to find all of our friends in the living room. That one really got me. It was pretty awesome.
• And I think one of the best presents I ever got was when Dave got me a plane ticket home to catch a day game with him at Angel Stadium. First off, that was pretty expensive, but he knows how much I love those day games and I was going back only for a few days because I was attending spring term, so my time was limited and it's always so much better to fly home than lose a whole day driving. One of my favorite things about that one was that he always made Becca jealous because his presents were always better than hers. What can I say? He's one of the best gift givers I know, plus he knows me better than anyone. It's to be expected, right?

I think those are pretty easily my favorite birthdays, but I think I'm pretty easy to please now. Thanks so much to everyone who has remembered already, and it's only 9:00 am. I can't tell you all how much I appreciate it and how much I love you all. Thanks.