Yesterday was Ieva’s 18^th birthday. We all wanted to do something special for her, so we started planning weeks ago. First we had the idea to kidnap her and take her out of the country (because when you’re 18, you can travel without your parents). We even found CHEAP (like REALLY CHEAP) airline tickets and thought to take her to Stockholm, Sweden for the weekend. Unfortunately, getting to Sweden is the cheap part, but staying there is another story. For many reasons, that fell through. So did plan B, and I think plan C. In the end, we went with what we actually did yesterday…

Actually, everything started the night before. We were all at the bi-weekly Musician’s Night, which doesn’t start until 9pm and has a history of going well past midnight. At midnight we broke out in a “Happy Birthday” song, and completed the Latvian birthday ritual… which is to put the birthday person in a chair and then they are lifted/thrown in the air as many times as their age. Since we were in a church… we used the whole row of 4 chairs… good thing Ieva’s little!

“Leaving Exams” are a big part of a Latvian student’s life. You have to pass these big exams to graduate from high school (something kind of equivalent to our SAT / ACT tests in the US, but this isn’t to get into University, but just to graduate). So, we thought to give Ieva a “Childhood Leaving Exam”, full of important things every adult needs to know. Peteris, Andis, Chris and I all met her at her house at 9am to begin the exam. She had no idea what she was in for. We started with some basic questions… Could she dress herself? Did she know her phone number? We then went on to things that are a little more difficult… could she cross the street alone safely? Ride a bike? Put gas in a car? Chop wood? Prepare food? Of course we made her prove that she could do all of these things (and more)… To show that she understood how difficult it is to earn money, we took Chris’ guitar and had her stand near a local shop downtown and play & sing. We also wanted to see if she could drive, which I would say was the only part she failed. We ended this part of her party by blindfolding her and putting her in the car. When we took the blindfold off, we were at the local paintball field! It’s something she’s talked about for a while, and the 5 of us had a BLAST! I think Chris forgot how competitive I can be! The first time I got shot was on the back of my shoulder, which REALLY hurt and I have a nice welt from it (thank-you Peteris!), but I think it just made me want to win! It was me, Ieva & Andis against Peteris and Chris. They won the first time, but we won the rest. The last round was me against Peteris… to bad he ran out of paint balls before I did!!! We had SO much fun!

We all went home for some lunch and to get ready for 12th grade graduation. Ieva and Andis had to help with it (since they’re in 11th grade) and Chris was playing with Arta & Kristine for the music. Oh yeah, and I’m a teacher, so I had to go, too. (I keep forgetting that part.) Afterwards, we hung out and ate and then went back home again to change, again. Then, for the last part, we got some snacks and the cake, some blankets, a frisbee, a soccer ball and the guitar (of course) and headed to the beach in Roja. Ieva loves the beach. We thought to go to one we knew of and had been to before, but for some reason it was just not so great that day. The mosquitoes were crazy and the coast stunk, literally… so we headed into town to the main public beach. It was so nice. We played, ate, walked in the water, walked down the seawall to the lighthouse (if you ever go there, wear shoes!!!) and watched the sunset around 10:30pm which was amazing. Around 11:30pm we were all getting cold, so we headed home. It was so strange that even at midnight, you could still see colors in the sky. Beautiful. A birthday prayer of blessing ended our “24 Hour” party as we split ways. A great end to a great day! We love you, Ieva!