Larry's Birthday Celebration

So Larry's birthday this year was way better than last year - for one, we had a new baby; second, he had JUST gotten PRK (lasik) done and was still semi-healing from it; and lastly, the lovely 'vid seemed to close everything down. This year I really wanted to make it up to him. His birthday was on Thursday and he took that day and Friday off (since we both had today off) for a nice long weekend. He did take a test for another certification he had been trying for a few months (this was his 3rd attempt) and luckily found out he passed! I told him that must mean this month is going to be a good month - we have a few other goals this month that I'd love to know are going to be achieved - so this is a good first step. He got to make some treats with the girls (and I love getting pics of them cooking with us). And then we ended the night going to Leatherby's (one of his favorites) and getting yummy food and LOTS of ice cream. My favorite part was the older lady who walked past our table and said we had a cute family - I love those compliments the most. 

This isn't from his birthday, but I love taking pics of these
Little moments with him and the kids!

For Friday, he just got to be lazy, nothing really special happened that day. Normally we'd let him celebrate Saturday, but then we had other plans that couldn't be rearranged so we decided to let him take today as his birthday day (then the Saturday plans kind of fell through, but because of other reasons he still had to wait till today for his birthday celebrations). 

He decided, for his birthday, he wanted to go to Wendover. Even though Le Bus wasn't running today and he hates the idea of driving on his own for 2 hours, it was still what he wanted to do. I was excited to have the day with just me and the girls - I've not done that for a whole day with just me and the girls (at least not where I felt comfortable leaving the house with them by myself) yet so I was eager to see how well it would go!

While I let Larry sleep in I got the girls up and ready and fed. Then we headed to the grocery store. We can't go out too far for too long in the mornings since Lucy still has a morning nap, but grocery shopping gives us a good excuse to get out and the girls wanted to help grab things we needed and so many people commented on how I had such great helpers with me. I also got a few people giving me horror head wound stories from when their kid (or themself as a kid) fell out of a cart or got into a car accident and all the horrible things that happened from that (because Lucy kept standing on the seat in the cart and they were getting scared and looking out for me...it was sweet, really). Once we got home from shopping I put Lucy down and let the older girls play outside while I put groceries away. Then we had a quick lunch and I put the girls down for a nap while I watched a movie.

Now, before I put the girls down they were, of course, complaining that they weren't tired, but I told them we were going on an adventure that they needed to be rested for so they had to lie down. Big fat help that did, I could hear them making noises until literally 2 minutes before I had to wake them up. I had already bought the tickets and reservations for Thanksgiving Point Gardens (thinking they'd love to see the lego displays they had going on and especially the big waterfall and walking around in the fresh air would do them good) so I couldn't just let them nap a little longer and felt so bad when I woke them up (bad and also anxious that they were going to have a meltdown, but they didn't do too bad).

What's funny is I went in and asked them "do you guys want to go on our adventure to the big waterfall?" and Cara popped right up so excited to head out. Gwen took a bit more influencing and poking and prodding, but eventually woke up and came downstairs. Luckily I had gotten their clothes and the bag all ready to head out, so once they were up I just had to get them out of diapers and get shoes and socks on and we were ready to go. I made sure to put snacks in the bag and grab plenty of water and sunscreen (it has been almost 100 degrees every day lately so those were a definite need). 

When we parked the car (accidentally in front of the Curiousity Museum instead of the Gardens) it started to rain. It was so funny to hear Cara yell out "Oh man, we just washed the car!" haha. I, however, LOVE summer rain storms and was so excited to walk through it with the girls. Even if Cara was also saying she didn't like getting wet haha. I was worried we were walking so far to the gardens that the walk back might not be fun, but I figured sometimes you just have to roll with the punches/go with the flow and just not worry too much.

I was so bummed when we got to the gardens and saw signs up all over saying the waterfall was closed for maintenance and kept hoping they were just old signs from the weekend and we would still get to see it (it was the biggest selling point to the kids after all! And it's just so pretty and I had this image of grabbing food and eating dinner in front of it). I was very disappointed to see the signs were not leftover and the waterfall was, in fact, off. I had text Larry to ask how his day in Wendover was going and he said he was actually headed home at that point so I knew I had to keep the girls out for a bit so he could have a quiet house for a bit (he hadn't spent that much time out there so I wanted him to have as relaxing time for his birthday as possible).

The girls and I had a lot of fun at the gardens. We started making up a little song in between looking for each lego statue (there were 15 total spread throughout). It started with "We're looking for number 3. I wonder what it'll be" and then just progressed in rhymes from there. After about an hour (and even after we had stopped for snacks) I was getting so hungry and it was VERY hot (I don't know why I wore black jeans, but it was a huge mistake). The girls were also getting sick of walking and would take turns riding in the stroller, which meant I was holding Lucy and pushing one of them in the stroller. This meant I was getting a SUPER workout this day haha.

So once we had found enough lego statues I called it and we headed out to go get some dinner. Luckily, a few more lego exhibits came up as we were leaving so the girls got excited to see those. We headed over to the cafe place in the front of Thanksgiving Point and ordered some yummy food. And luckily, it took a while (normally I'd hate this, but the longer we were out the more time Larry got to relax at home (the drive out to Wendover isn't what I'd describe as relaxing, but I also hate driving for a long time with no real exciting end to it). By the time we got home Larry had been home for a couple hours (or so he says). I asked him if he had fun and he said it was only okay because he had lost so much money, didn't get to spend that much time there, and driving felt like it was a waste of time (if he had taken the bus he could read or watch something instead) so it wasn't AS much fun as usual, but he said it was nice and quiet for him. I also made sure to put all the girls down for bed all by myself so he didn't need to worry about getting up and could just relax more.

So overall, his birthday was just another day in Wendover and this post was more about what I did on his birthday, but that's all I know to write about. If I wrote his take it would be:

Got to sleep in, drove to Wendover, lost a lot of money, drove home, had a quiet dinner, played games. Saw my kids for about half an hour and then they went to bed. Happy Birthday haha.