The 18 Year Old Birthday Present

Since my daughter was at Disney World on her birthday, and we picked her up from her aunt's the day after her birthday, and got home late that night, we had her open her gifts today.

She got cards with money inside from family. Her brother gave her an i-Tunes card. My husband and I gave her a gift card so she can go shopping for whatever she needs/wants for college and a beaded key chain in the shape of a cute crab for her dorm keys (her birth sign is Cancer, the crab). There was one gift my husband alone gave her. It was an envelope of items he had put together and sealed in South Korea on the day she was born...A Birthday Time capsule.

When I was 3 months pregnant my husband got orders and left for a one year remote tour to South Korea. I stayed behind in the States. Korea was 16 hours ahead of us and over 6,000 miles away...

Inside the birthday time capsule was a pink birth announcement with the Korean date and time of her birth. Instead of July 22nd at 1:17 p.m., it read, July 23, 5:17 a.m. There was also a letter written by my husband. He wrote, "hard to describe how proud I am of you and your mother" and "can't wait to come home and hold you", as well as, "I love you very much and can't wait to see you". Just some of the highlights. When my daughter read the letter she got misty-eyed. She handed me the letter, I too teared up (what a guy, am I lucky or what?). He had placed some Korean money with the letter...all dated 1991. My daughter likes to collect money from around the world (her Dad would always bring some home from his tours), so it was perfect that he had sealed the Korean money for her 18 years ago.

My husband had gone out and gotten two papers, the Osan Air Base paper called the MIG Alley Flyer and the Stars and Stripes and put them in the capsule. The television schedule was listed in the base paper...Growing Pains, Perfect Strangers and Doogie Howser, M.D. were some of the shows playing. The base theater was showing City Slickers, Dances with Wolves and Terminator 2. Two headlines in the Stars and Stripes read, "England Crop Circles Mystifying" and "Genetic Mapping Raises Ethical Questions". Some things never change.

This picture of a Mickey Mouse hot air balloon in Moscow's Red Square was also in the Stars and Stripes. The hot air balloon was there to advertise Euro Disney's open in Paris in the spring of 1992.

What are the odds that 18 years later my daughter would open her Birthday Time capsule after her return from Disney World and read about Mickey Mouse in Moscow? Turns out, pretty darn good.