Older and Wiser (I hope)

Today I turned 40.

Growing older is a good thing in Nigeria. Age is valued here. Wisdom is associated with age and sought after.

It was a good day. Since it was a public holiday for Easter Monday, this was the schedule:
Party. Swim. Party.

I hosted a few friends in the morning at the Rock Garden. (See pics of the location from Sunday post.) We had coffee, tea, cinnamon rolls, angel food cake, and egg rolls. I used some questions from the game LifeStories, and we all shared various stories from our lives. It's amazing to me how many stories each of us actually has stored up inside. We all got to know each other better. It was a really nice morning.

When I came home, I noticed that my househelper was making a huge fruit salad. I tucked that little detail in the back of my mind that something was definitely up.

Because of the large fruit salad, I decided to clear some clutter out of the livingroom.

I took the kids swimming for the afternoon. It's fun to see them develop their confidence as they spend more time in the water.

A friend had asked me to come to her house at 4:30 so she could discuss something with me. When she asked me a few days ago, I thought nothing of it, but later I figured she was part of the whole set-up. However, she actually did have some important things to discuss.

After I had been with my friend for about 40 minutes, Tobi called me on Bayo's phone, wanting to know when I was coming home. I asked if there was a problem. He said, "Uhhh...uhhhh....I'll call you later." I'm so glad he can't easily lie.

When I walked in the house, it was full of people and flowers and food! Bayo actually did a really good job since I didn't have a clue until just a few hours before. And it was very smart of him not to tell the kids anything until the very end.

Thanks to everyone who made my birthday a special day!