My Birfday Wishes Came True

Dear Erin,

Thank you for insuring that I had a wonderful birthday yesterday. Thanks for taking the kids shopping so they could pick something out for me and then thanks for wrapping it all. I had a great morning opening the little gifts of my favorite things while we had breakfast at the creamery. And thanks for the jacket. Maybe I'll be half as cool as you.


Erin, I am so grateful you are my sister. There aren't many who'll invite their sister and her five kids to trapse through their family vacation with them and NOT spend the entire time shouting at her onry nieces and nephews. I am thankful that you love them, even when their naughty (like at 11pm last night at bedtime.) While I know we're creating memories for our kids, I love staying up late with you on our laptops, watching crummy TV, and having you finish all these projects you brought with you. You are the queen of multi-tasking! After all the planning, organizing, thinking-it-through-ness, and efforts, you deserve a killer nap.



I love you!

*****************

Okay, now to yesterday's festivities. About my birthday, I wanted to give a HUGE thank you to my sister (who went way overboard to insure I had a great day) and then also, many thanks for all the sweet birthday wishes from friends and family. My cousin Rick even sent a wish from his hospital bed . . . how sweet is that? Another friend sang to me and then a lot of wonderful good wishes. It was really great. Thanks a ton.

So, for my birthday we did go to the creamery and it felt very birthday-fied. Erin's blog has all the pictures and goods from that brunch (since we didn't get out and moving until 11ish.) Then we headed up to the "This is the Place" monument park to partake in the pioneer goodness. An extra bonus that Uncle Brandon came a joined us for a little bit. My kids have so missed him and it was great to see him.

This was the second year we came here and Mackenzie actually asked if we could *PLEASE* stay until closing. This year we got a group photo (see Erin's blog) and saw a lot more than we did last summer, but we didn't even get to everything. Caylee thinks it would be a dream job to grow up and work at the pioneer park. Among the favorite activities were the train ride, working in the woodshop, and the pony rides. I could hardly get Brock out of the petting zoo and Brevin LOVED posing with a real gun in our picture. (After we were done with our pictures he was "showing" this lady the gun and waved it in her face. She didn't like that too much and proceeded to lecture him sternly about not pointing guns in people's faces. Uncle Brandon was all anxious about Brevin getting in trouble by someone else and I totally just rolled my eyes. Ya know, after nearly two weeks with 9 kids, I'm not going to freak out about Brevin's improper gun pointing [I don't even think he knew it was real and we all know it's not loaded . . . it's a prop for heaven's sake]. I'm sure the woman wanted me to react too, but she had it under control. )

Here I am talking to my father-in-law who gave me a birthday call. He was points ahead of Tyler who remembered to give me some birthday love at 9:48pm last night. All's fair in love and war, right? I totally forgot his birthday in 2003 while we were up here for his cousin's wedding. I figure we're all square now. It happening more as we get older; we forget things.

After our afternoon at the park, and a few wrong turns, and 1.5 hours later we made it to Aunt Jeanette's and Uncle Randy's for a yummy dinner. It's always fun to visit with them and the girls LOVED hanging out with Jessi while the boys followed Josh nonstop. They will forever remember that stop since we got to cook s'mores in their backyard, Brock played lacrosse, Brevin scored in the lego options, and Caylee survived their big, furry cats. Good times by all. I just love them . . . all of Tyler's family :)

Today we're relaxing, getting the carpet fixed, going to a swim park, cleaning and packing so we can head on out in the morning. I'll be happy to get home (to a super clean house . . . someone give Tyler the heads up that I'm expecting that, would ya?!). So far I'm really loving the summer vacation and it's going to continue to be fun with free movies, swimming, camping, and hello! HARRY POTTER. Hope you're all having a good time too.