Birthday Surprises and Pridefest.

I had the best birthday weekend ever. I'm a big fan of surprises, and I was definitely surprised on Friday. On Thursday, my friend Ricky asked Amy and I if we wanted to get lunch at Common Ground at 12 p.m. the next day (which was my birthday), and I didn't suspect anything because we usually go to CG together for lunch. Well, it's almost 12 and Ricky called Amy and told us he was done with his "meeting" and was walking over to CG, so we could leave to come meet him. When I walked in, I noticed that the big booth was filled with a bunch of my friends, and then I noticed someone in the middle was sitting with his arm blocking view of his face and looking down. I wondered who it was, and I just assumed it was someone else’s friend. Then he looked up, and it was my boyfriend. He surprised me and came down from Virginia-where he goes to school- for the weekend! I was so shocked when I saw him; I asked him if he was really there. haha. It was great. We all went out to dinner at Macaroni Grill that night and then I went back to Jordan's house and his mom had a cake and gift for me. It was a great night :)



This weekend, I also had to take pictures at Pridefest for my internship. What an experience it was. The thing that bothered me the most though, was that there were Christian protesters there, holding huge signs and shouting through a megaphone at all the people. While I do believe that homosexuality is a sin, we are all sinners, and shouting at people is not the way to bring someone to salvation. Everyone was booing at the protesters and saying "haters, go home!" I felt ashamed to have these people representing Christ and other Christians. Later on, as the parade was ending and everyone was heading down to the park where booths and festivities were set up, the protestors continued to yell at people and started to attract a crowd around them. I was pushing my way through trying to get pictures and find out what was going on and holding my camera over my head trying to capture what I couldn’t see. One of the protesters ended up getting arrested for disorderly conduct because he put his hands on one of the cops who were trying to break up the riot. It was quite an event. It was really heartbreaking to me though. I just wanted these people to know that Jesus loves them, and that Christians aren’t all like these people. I understand that God does have anger towards people who sin against him, but he still loves these people despite their sin. I'm pretty sure the people at the parade aren’t going to want to have anything to do with the god that these two men were portraying.


It was a nice weekend, but I got little sleep last night because I had to wake up at 5am to go to the airport with my boyfriend. Today coffee is my best friend.