birthday surprises

On Saturday, May 30, at about 8:30 in the morning, I completed 24 years of living and breathing without an umbilical cord.
I woke up that morning around 6:30, right before my child walked into my room and crawled into my bed. I pretended to sleep for the next hour while he played with my clock and chapstick. We got up and he went downstairs to the kitchen with my two roommates and two friends who had spent the night. I knew they were cooking breakfast for me, and shortly thereafter Ingrid brought up a coffee in my mug. I spent a little while reading my Bible and journaling, then took a nice long shower and got ready. What I thought was just breakfast for the six of us turned out to be a huge brunch for twelve people. Very thankful for good friends and good food, I found out the celebration had just begun. It was a very sunny day (I was thinking of taking J. to the park with his tricycle) and they told me we were going to a pool. "In Bogota???" But they wouldn't tell me where.
It turned out to not just be a pool, but a water park with a wave pool and some really cool slides, all enclosed under a greenhouse-type building (which is nice for Bogota's normal weather, but the day was so sunny I was a bit sad to miss out on the tanning opportunity).
We played for hours, at the end of which I received another surprise: J. pooped in the pool. I was flustered and trying to figure out the best way to get him clean and changed and take care of poopy boxers, but I had to laugh because it was just the cherry on top of my birthday. I thought we'd go home and get him showered and changed, but instead I rinsed him off in the cold shower at the park because they told me we were going to a restaurant.
We took a bus to a mall, where Madeline disappeared and I went with Ingrid, Fabian, J., and Warner into Exito (Walmart) and they started looking at clothes. Madeline showed up with a basket full of food/ingredients and then they picked out a silly shirt for me. We left the store and I had to change into my birthday suit (I mean, shirt...) and then we took another bus to the 127 house (the ministry HQ), where most everyone in the ministry was waiting to help celebrate!
Some folks had made cakes and others got to working chopping veggies and cooking ground beef for a taco salad. We ate and then they put on dance music! (I put J. in bed shortly after we arrived, because he had already eaten something and he was really tired and I didn't feel like fighting with his tired little self.)
I don't think I've ever had such a complete day of birthday celebration and surprises! I really kept thinking their plans were completed and then found out they had something else up their sleeves! I'm trying to think of a way to thank them all...

Another surprise, that we got yesterday, is that we don't have any water! Since living here in Torre Fuerte, we've had our electricy cut off, our gas meter stolen (and thus cut), and now our water meter stolen! This is definitely the most difficult. Hopefully we'll get it back tomorrow. Our kitchen is disgusting, our bathrooms are gross (we had to get buckets of water from the neighbors to flush the toilets and bathe me and J.), and I'm realizing how much I take the convenience of the faucet for granted...