From China with Chopsticks: Happy Birthday Chelsie!

Sunday was Chelsie's birthday! Before we left for work I gave her the awesome home-made cards that I had cleverly crafted without her knowledge the day before. And then the festivities were over since we were going to work for a busy busy day (or so Chelsie thought....he he he). Well the morning was uneventful because we had several classes, but Bella told me that Echo (our boss) would bring a cake in after lunch and I was to keep Chelsie in the office while they got the music room ready for her party. So 40 minutes before our first afternoon class was supposed to start Herby and Bella came and told Chelsie to look in the music room to see if it was okay with all the plants gone (that's a whole other story)......so Chelsie suspiciously followed us to the music room and found this:

One of the girls in the office learned how to play Happy Birthday on the keyboard and, after a couple false starts, we had a lovely accompaniment for everyone singing to Chelsie. It was adorable. The birthday cake was actually cheesecake - blueberry cheesecake - and it was delicious. All the girls in the office were adorable and it was so sweet of our boss to have this party for Chelsie. Work is looking like a more positive and less stressful place already :) Some photo documentation:

The birthday girl with her birthday (cheese)cake

Herby Berby! Being cute as usual

The whole crew! From left to right: Candy, me, Eva, Lucy, Echo (boss), Stone, Herby, Birthday Girl, Bella, Vivian, Melinda, Yogi. I work with a bunch of awesome people :)


Chelsie: "We have to take a birthday picture" Me: "Oooooookay"

After we ate some yummy cheesecake, we played a game they call Mona Lisa. (Except in Chinese it's Méng nà lì shā.....you'll see why this is important momentarily). In this game, one person starts by saying "Méng", then points to another person, who says "nà" and points to another person, who says, you guessed it, "lì", and then points at one more person who says "shā" while striking a pose similar to that of Mona Lisa in the painting. The person to her right and left also have to make the sides of the frame. If anyone messes up, they get beat up with blow-up hammers and balloons (in our version of the game hahaha). It was pretty funny and everyone had a grand ol' time.....I caught a mess-up on video:

That night after work Chelsie and I went to this Blues Bar that we had gone past on the bus several times and always said "Hey, we should go there". There was live music and comfy couches to lounge on and since it was Sunday night the place was pretty much empty. It was awesome. I got into a zone of happy music listening and let my thoughts wander......