A Quarter-Centennial to Remember (a post by Lee)

Anna Marie turned the big 2-5 this year, so Jordie and I chose to commemorate this event by surprising her with a big, Southern-style breakfast jubilee.

We ran into some difficulties before the day even began:

1. I’m from New Jersey and Jordie hails from Florida (essentially New Jersey displaced), so neither of us know how to cook anything Southern cuisine.

2. We’d planned it as a surprise. Unfortunately, Anna Marie hates surprises. After pestering us for weeks about whether or not we were “actually going to do something” to celebrate her birthday, we finally buckled. She expressed some enthusiasm, but mostly dread that Jordie and I would be responsible for preparing food for friends.

3. Since we invited about 20 of her closest friends to join us at 11:30am, we needed to start cooking at 8am. We appointed Anna Marie as videographer, meaning we had to rouse the birthday girl at the ungodly hour of 7:30am on a Saturday. This was an unpopular decision.

4. We had just quelled a bug invasion in our apartment that very week.

Luckily, the stars aligned and breakfast was [mostly] edible! Jordie and I edited our most impressive moments from our foray in the kitchen into a short film. Please honor Anna Marie’s big day by viewing the video below.