Yesterday, Karin turned 25 years old. She’s an amazing young lady and it’s a pleasure to watch her make her way through the world, with the spirit and influence and drive that she has. For some reason it’s not as weird to have my youngest turn 25 as it is when my little brother hits milestone birthdays. I am already sufficiently boggled at my own age; my daughter’s doesn’t seem to make it worse, which is nice.
She’s barely been home for 2 weeks, first working a week at the music festival in Roskilde, Denmark and then working every single evening shift at Beachgarden this past week. She can’t easily get home to Flyinge without a car as the last bus goes around 9, and she can’t even get to Gårdstånga’s bus stop before 11:30…on a weeknight, both Anders and I are already in bed at that point. So she mostly stays in Lund and sleeps at her best friend’s place when she’s working late.
Yesterday, she had the day off because she was hosting a birthday party…at Beachgarden 😀 She called and asked if one of us could come get her in Lund, and Anders did, so she was home for a few hours before we all left to go set up for the party. Martin and Theo met us there. It was pouring rain as it had been all day, which was a total bummer, but thankfully Beachgarden has a roof over the deck and it was enough for the 30 expected guests. We moved tables and dried things off and set out flowers and hung up the disco ball and then sat around chatting while waiting for the party to start at 5.
In addition to us, Maria and Mikael came with Danté, and Debbie, Ola, and Camilla. The rest were Karin’s friends from soccer, school, work, and the ski guide group. Even some Danes made it over! We had delicious foccacia sandwiches for dinner served by the owners (Karin’s friends and colleagues Jakob and Odessa) and a birthday discount on drinks. Anders and I paid for the sandwiches but everything else was at people’s own cost. Around 8 pm, the clouds FINALLY dispersed and the sun came out. Elsa, Karin’s best friend, had put together a quiz about Karin and set it up around the perimeter of Beachgarden’s fence. Maria and I were a team, and we actually got ALL the questions correct! The last one though, was a tiebreaker, and it asked how many shots Karin could drink. I answered “My baby doesn’t do shots”, haha! Turns out she’s the shotmaster at Beachgarden! (making them, not drinking them)
It was a lot of fun, and we added gelato to the evening as well (I had dark chocolate, pistachio and Swedish berry, yum yum) before we old people called it a night and went home (Martin and Theo got a ride with us back to their place). It was really nice to see Karin in her element, laughing and chatting with everyone, and serving sandwiches and drinks with panache. I look forward to seeing what she does with her next 25 years! Happy birthday, baby. 🙂
Mood: happy
Music: Michelle Lewis—Nowhere and Everywhere