My Celebrate 55 Birthday Extravaganza Week has come to an end. I’m going to give a quick recap of my movie marathon day and then wrap up my feelings on the week as a whole.

It took me some time to decide what movies to watch for my marathon. I initially chose The Hunger Games movies, because the dystopian themes felt rather timely. I discarded that idea (because it felt too timely), and was going to do book to movie adaptations that I haven’t seen yet (The Storied Life of AJ Fikry, Turtles All the Way Down, etc.). But then the news came this week of Sam Neill’s passing, and I knew I needed to do the Jurassic Park series as a tribute. I realize he’s only in 3 of the 7 movies, but I can’t think of the franchise without Sam Neill.

I started my marathon in the wee hours of Friday night/Saturday morning since I was awake, but took a break after the first two movies for a nap. I kept things nice and chill, taking a nap every two or three movies, as needed. Just because it’s a marathon, doesn’t mean I have to rush through all of the movies without a break!

And as far as wrapping up the entire week, I really enjoyed it! And my family really supported it, which was great! Mom did make fun of me decorating my room and thought it was a bit much to do that and wear a tiara (I own it, why not wear it?). But overall, I received nothing but support, with my brother and sister-in-law making sure that I had access to the car for both the Wildlife Safari visit and Bookstore shopping.

I enjoyed the week and every “event” was great. Yes, I did skip Spa Day, but that was because I was exhausted from the Zoo the day before, and I am still planning to do all of my home spa treatments this week.

This is something I definitely plan on doing again next year (with different events) and I want to try to keep doing some of the activities on a more regular basis.