Birthday Buddies

 

15 years ago, I spent my birthday in the hospital delivering this baby boy into the world and welcoming him into our family.  I went on to have two more babies, but never another boy.  So, as my only boy and my birthday buddy, he has a special place in my heart. 💙

Normally, we spend our joint birthday on some grand adventure, but this year we broke with tradition since we are leaving in a few days for our Alaskan cruise with my family to celebrate my parents 50th Anniversary.  So, we stayed local this year and enjoyed a "birthday buddy breakfast" together. 

And then I got a surprise flower delivery from Dave, who was out of town in New Jersey with Riley at a lacrosse tournament.  I put the flowers in a vase and then jumped in the van with Ella and headed to her lacrosse tournament an hour and a half away.  After two games, we headed back home.....

And walked into this.  Dave (orchestrating from New Jersey) and Lacey surprised us with an ice cream cake and sang to us.  No birthday is complete imo without cake and song.  Thanks Dave and Lacey!

And to top it all off.... within an hour of getting home from this all day lacrosse tournament, I hosted about ten 15-year-old boys for a celebratory birthday bonfire.  I ordered pizzas, got them drinks, watermelon, chips and stuff to make s'mores.  

A look back on to just a few of our birthday buddy adventures....

Death Valley National Park

Las Vegas

Hoover Dam

Rocky Mountain National Park

I sure do love all our trips together, Tanner and all the memories we've made together over the last 15 years.  Cheers to many more adventures to come!  Love you, birthday buddy! 🎂

School's Out!! Whoo Hoo!

 

Last day of 4th Grade for this spunky caboose!

We celebrated with slurpees with friend and teammate Livia after lacrosse practice. 

And last day of 6th grade for this beauty.  She navigated her way beautifully through her first year of Middle School ending the year with straight A's, best friends with all her teachers, and still finding time to juggle four different sports (lacrosse, soccer, basketball and swimming), three of which are competitive travel teams.  Way to go, Riley!

And last day of Freshman and Sophomore years for these two High Schoolers.  Tanner decided to make a statement on his last day!  Glad these two had each other to be bus buddies, seminary classmates and school siblings. 

Snapped this after Ella already left for school.

The kittens were on hand to wish everyone a happy last day of school!

Middle school fire pit hangout celebration on last day of school!

Now, let's jam pack our school-free time with non-stop fun!!!

Seminary Graduation

On the last day of Seminary, I hosted a big celebratory breakfast at my house.  What a great group of "kids"!  There are many highlights of the year, which involved studying the second half of the Old Testament and the first half of the New Testament, but my biggest highlight was having two of my own kids in my class.

Lacey posing by the awesome food display at Seminary Graduation.

One of my students earned a four year graduation diploma, having completed all eight semesters of seminary - I had in my class for the last four of those eight semesters.  He's an athlete and he always used this pink marker whenever we were doing a handout of any kind in class.  Whenever a writing implement was needed, I passed around my big ziplock bag of pens/pencils/markers and everyone just grabbed whatever.  Except Josh.  He would always, always, always use this pink marker.  And everyone else knew it and nobody else would ever take it, knowing that was "his."  So I combined the idea of the "pink marker" and him being an athlete and decided to "retire" his jersey/pink marker and put it in this shadow box as a graduation gift.  Lacey, being the awesome artist she is, helped me with the jersey.

Opening his gift.

Congratulations, Josh!  You'll do great things!!

Arlington Echo With my Baby

 

The highlight of 4th grade is being able to go on a 2-day overnight field trip adventure to Arlington Echo.

And I signed up to chaperone so that I could spend some extra quality time with my youngest!

We divided up into pre-assigned groups and Ella was thrilled that her good buddy Ethan was in her group.

Exploring the frog pond.

I see one! 🐸

Then we went around to various stations/activities.  Our first was a nature walk exploring our senses. 

Then we had an energy station where we learned about renewable energy and natural resources.  Ella was very excited to be able to turn on a big light bulb by riding this bike. 

And of course her competitive spirit kicked in and she was determined to keep the light on the longest!

Our group for the two days.... Go Rockfish!

Next, we put our waders on.

And went seining!

Next up..... canoeing!

Paired up with Ethan of course!

And then we went to visit the chickens!

Feeding the new baby chicks was a big hit!

And then we got to check out our digs for our overnight adventure!  An epic slumber party with 30 girls!

But before we turned in for the night, we headed back out for some night time activities.

The parachute is always a hit!

We survived the night......  Thanks for the memories, Magothy cabin!

The fearsome five!  I only knew two of these women prior to this adventure, and only one of them well.  But after spending the night together in a cabin of 30 girls dealing with tears from homesickness, being scared from ghost stories, etc, etc.... we're bonded for life!

The adventure continued into the next day and we began the day with an archaeological dig.

And helped pack some paths with mulch to help the soil and seeds not get washed out by heavy rainpours.

But alas, the adventure came to an end and we gathered one last time for lunch and a slide show.

It was an exhausting two days but I'm always grateful for time with my girl!