21.

Today is my 21st Birthday! My Dad and Mom told me this morning that they are getting me the new movie that was released on DVD today "Gnomeo and Juliet". I’m quite excited! It is kind of funny that this movie was released on my birthday because I have some history with Garden Gnomes.

My freshman year of college we were pretty bored so some of the students came up with a... we'll say adventure called Dare Night. Already starting to sound bad huh? We had been split into teams and in each team we had a list of dares we had to get done in the allotted time. There was things on the list like "Take a bite out of an onion", "let a dog out of a yard" (which by the way we did, but sort of cheated at the same time, the dog was safely returned to the yard), "T.P a tree", change the letters on a Church sign" "Call your parents and convince them you turned gay"...you get the idea. The last one that we did was "Steal a garden gnome from someone’s yard" great idea, right...NOT! So we started out in a neighborhood, in my car, with me driving and the first house we found with a garden gnome of some sort the passenger was to jump out and grab it..so we found one and the passenger jumped out ran, grabbed the object and ran back into the getaway car and I zoomed off....here’s where it gets interesting, the object we got wasn’t just any ordinary garden gnome, it couldn't be that easy, it was a figurine....of Jesus!!! It was huge and really super heavy, but we made it back to campus with Jesus and all. That was a Saturday night, so therefore the next day was Sunday....and Church! So I’m setting listening to the sermon when I start to feel this guilt, that I had stolen something...I went to the alter and was so very upset. Afterwards I talked to one of my team mates that went to the same church as me and believe it or not he had the same guilt, so that night we snuck to the waterfall where our beautiful treasures were displayed and grabbed Jesus and went back to the neighborhood and returned him to his yard sidewalk in from of his house.

I told my parents about this, and I’m beginning to think that wasn’t the wisest decision that I have ever made, but I did. They thought it was hilarious...so much that it is still a joke 3 years later. Later that year I get an email from my mom...a sweet little greeting card. In this greeting card there is a talking Garden Gnome and this little guy is personalized just for me...telling me that the Gnomes felt safe until I came into town, that they were watching me and had security and all this and that. It was funny

That is story of my encounter with Garden Gnomes and why my parents are buying me the movie! :)