A December Birthday... (December 08)

The older I get, the less "to do" I want about my birthdays. It's hard enough for me to digest that I'm over thirty (yes, I'm still in denial) and each year brings me closer to the big 40 (really not looking forward to that). Anyway, Ryan still wanted to do something with the family, and it is fun to see everyone and get together (and of course, eat and not have to cook). We ended up going to the Macaroni Grill - yes, I love Italian - and we had a good time. I still can't believe I'm moving farther from thirty, but my kids will keep me young (I also can't believe there are four of them now). Here's the long table (lots of family!) with everyone. The only bad thing was that the table was so long it was hard to talk to everyone. Sorry about that!


Here I am trying to blow out my only candle. That thing didn't want to go out!


William also made a bee-line for my seat as soon as he saw the piece of cake. He wasn't going to miss out on that!

Before...


After...



And NO, I did not eat all of it myself. Although I think I could have :) Thanks everyone for a fun birthday and for the great gifts!

Valley of Fire Trip (11/1)

I have to admit that the Holidays really threw me for a loop with my blogging! I'm hoping to get more used to it to be better at it next year. In the mean time I want to highlight a few "happenings" in November and December. Then I can hopefully keep up!

On November 1st, we, and by we I mean Ryan, Me, Zach, Kaitlyn and Caleb (Will was having fun with his grandparents for a special day) headed out to the Valley of Fire. We had such a great time rock climbing at Red Rock that we wanted to try it again. We stopped at the picnic area first and had some hot dogs and goodies and then started on the hike to the Mouse Tank. I carried Caleb in the back pack and Ryan carried his camera bag (which probably weighed more than Caleb!) Here we are at the top of the Mouse Tank rock.

Zach and Kaitlyn had a good time finding holes to climb in so Ryan could take some fun shots of them peeking out. They thought it was pretty cool to hide in the rocks and Caleb thought it was fun to try eating the sand...


On the way back to the parking lot, we went a different route, off the beaten path, and came across an amazing arch. We decided to climb up and get a few shots on top of it (yes, we're crazy!)Of course Ryan was able to capture a lot of amazing shots, so I put a collage together of my favorites. Good job Rye! We had a great time and the kids want to go back soon!