Mexico: Quince

Yup that's right, I got to have a Quinceanera on my birthday in Mexico. I can say with confidence that it was one of the most meaningful days of my entire life.

What is a Quinceanera? It's a very special birthday celebration for girls when they turn 15. It celebrates becoming a women and entering a new stage of life. Why the heck are you wearing that ridiculous dress? Well my friend, wearing a BIG, fancy dress just like that one that I wore is Quince tradition! It may look a little funny, but who doesn't like laughing at themselves and feeling a little strange looking for a day:) Why are there other people all dressed the same? For quinces, you have damas, which you can think of kinda like brides maids, and chambelans, which are kinda like groomsmen. If you're more curious about what a Quinceanera is I suggest you google it because it's very interesting.

The first day of the year started out bright and early. I woke up, and after being beautifully sung to by my family there, and enjoying some of my favorite food; Ellen's tapioca pudding, we headed over to the church to get things set up. With the help of my mom, Jennyi, and Luis we got the tables scrubbed, balloons tied into flowers, table clothes on with flowers in the middle, and everything looking beautiful.

I then went over to Jennyi's house to get my hair and makeup done. That took around one million years! Finally, after getting my dress on and collecting all my Damas and Chambelans we set out to take pictures. Mama Ellen had the wonderful idea of taking the pictures at Chololos, which is a complex of soccer and baseball fields at the foot of the mountains. Everyone else thought that it was a crazy idea because it's a park, but I thought it was a wonderful idea because I spent a lot of time there, not to mention that it's really beautiful. Taking the pictures was a lot of fun because there was so much at Chololos to work with. We did pictures on these cool looking blue bleachers, in front of a low white wall, playing soccer, in the soccer goal, and many more different locations in the park. Another brilliant idea of my mom's was to have me wear my soccer cleats underneath my big, fancy, red dress. Also to take pictures where my Chambelan de honor(basically the person that wore a different color shirt and danced with me) as the goalie, my Damas as defense, and me scoring a penalty kick. She certainly is the good idea factory, that Ellen! Both her and Jennyi did a very wonderful job of taking awesome pictures which you can see some of if you scroll down.

Next up was going to the church to get the party started! Though actually first came something else. My dad, Kyle, presented me. I didn't really know what it was before hand so it was a really great surprise. Basically, he gave a very sweet speech about why we were here, what turning 15 meant for me, and he shared some memories. This was 100% my favorite part. I couldn't stop smiling the whole time he was talking because it was just so darn beautiful and touching for me. It was really neat too because I understood everything he said(It was in Spanish), with the exception of when he read some Bible verse. Another surprise which I didn't know about at all was two videos. Turns out that all my friends there made this really cute video with pictures and a song and everything. Jennyi and my mom(the one from the US) also teamed up and got my friends from here in Ann Arbor to make videos wishing me happy birthday and such. It also included some embarrassing pictures of when I was little and the sound track was my favorite song:)

Then came the dances. I don't remember if I wrote about this in one of my other blog entries or not, but another thing which is traditional for quinces is to have these choreographed dances. We practiced all of December and then did a pretty good job of dancing them (I think).

Then last came dinner and dancing! I'm so thankful for getting to experience the quince tradition and I couldn't have asked for a better birthday and start to the new year.