Only ten months until Christmas, and

it's also Julie's birthday!

Julie just turned 32, so she obviously is my much older sister!

Ok. It's a lie. She's actually my next-to-the-youngest sibling.



I was in second grade when she was born. She was originally due on February 24th. We lived a little ways away from my school (we lived in Arkansas and my parents were afraid the public school would stunt our educational growth, so we went to a private school), and we carpooled. When I got home from school that day and saw that my mom was still pregnant, I was so confused. She was supposed to have a baby. It was her due date, after all.

Unfortunately for Julie, my parents had their hands full with three older kids, so there weren't many photo ops they took advantage of. I think the few baby photos we took were non-slide photos. The reason this is important information is that a couple of years ago, Julie digitized my parents' slides and gave each of us our own copies. So, we'll have to make do with the older Julie photos.

After moving from Julie's homeland of Arkansas, we moved to El Paso, Texas. About a month after we moved there, it snowed. We weren't really equipped with snow gear, but it looks like Julie still had fun in the cold.



She and my brother Todd shared a room for awhile when they were young. They had some pretty fancy wallpaper. I think Julie and Todd learned "G," "L," and "T" the best, based on that wallpaper. If you look closely, her pants had the alphabet on them, too.



My Dad took photos of us each year on the first day of school. I think this is the first day she went to preschool. She was the only of the Ingermanson kids to attend a real preschool. I thought she was so lucky! Her teacher was married to my Texas History teacher. And, yes, I took Texas History.



Julie was always such a happy little girl. (And she still is a happy girl). She could be counted on to cheese for the camera. I love this photo so much!



She has a fab sense of style. I think she's been to the fanciest of parties--even several galas. She always sews her own evening gowns. Although she didn't sew the following dress, you can see she had style from an early age. The German dirndl, the black tights, and the white peep-toed shoes.



She always achieves the unachievable. Once she puts her mind to it, she will do it. Or if she decides she isn't doing something, she won't. Last summer she hiked Havasupai. She moved to New York City, at the last minute, with no job, just to say she did it. She even got into a spaceship and flew to the moon!



She is a chef extraordinaire! She has an award-winning chili recipe that knocks the socks off anyone who eats it. Her chocolate-peanut butter cake is to die for. She could single handedly make a meal for 250 as easily as she can make a meal for 1.



Just about 20 years ago (REALLY!?!), our family got a dog, named Molly. That dog was CRAZY! And she LOVED Julie! If I ever wanted to excite the dog, I would ask her where Julie was. Julie almost even had her trained well. Julie would make Molly sit in the other room while she poured food in her bowl. She would make her sit there until she told Molly it was time to eat. Molly would sit there, but almost had a stroke waiting. Molly wouldn't obey anyone else.



Julie took years of German in high school and maybe even college (I'm a bad sister). There is a Primary birthday song that says Happy Birthday in several languages. One of those is German. When I was little I learned the song. I always sing it for her: "Glee klicker goo burts tog!" She crings and yells at me that I am singing it wrong. Finally, I told her to look in the orange Primary songbook and see that I am singing it correctly. Since she know German, she knew that I was wrong and she was right, so she marched to the book and showed me that I was, indeed, singing it....correctly? I told her since the Church pronounces it that way, the Germans must pronounce it incorrectly, since the Church is true! She tells me every year that it truly is pronounced "Frer licher guh burts tag." I still think the Church knows best!



When she was in 5th grade, all the fifth graders went to San Diego for a weekend. She used my parents' 110-film camera. You know, those skinny rectangular ones. She took a whole roll of pictures. When she got them developed, they all looked weird. We couldn't figure out any of the pictures. And then we realized they were of her ear, nose, face, etc. She had the camera facing the wrong direction. Here is a photo she meant to take:



Julie has always traveled to see her family and friends, even if it is a short little trip. About three months after she moved to NYC, I was in Florida for a week for work. She took a quick trip to see me and we had a great time. Julie is a fun sister and I'm glad she's around. I don't see her as often as I should, since she lives in Tucson, but I always have a great time when I'm with her.



Happy Birthday Julie!