Raeden's Birthday

Happy Birthday, Raeden!

Today is Raeden's 5th birthday. It certainly doesn't seem like 5 years have passed since that Sunday that we ran to the hospital after Gospel Meeting to see brand new baby Rae!


Yesterday, while Dani was getting the house ready for today's big "Enchanted Unicorn Party" the girls went roller skating with Carol and the kids. Dakota's friend Josh also joined them. Raeden got the hang of skating pretty quickly and had a good time.
Reecie even skated for her very first time!
For a mid-day skate on the Friday of Spring Break it wasn't very crowded. So the kids had a really fun time.
Josh and Dakota had a really good time skating together. Long after everyone else was tired and pretty much done skating they were still having a blast.

Yesterday evening we celebrated Rae's birthday early with dinner at Rainforest Cafe. Cha!Cha! the big treefrog mascot visited our table. Little Reecie loved Cha!Cha! and kept watching for him all evening.
We were also visited by a roving balloon maker. He made Raeden a pretty pink poodle on a leash.

And Dakota got a green monkey with a banana.

Reecie is at such a cute age.

Raeden was super excited when they brought out the awesome volcano dessert and sang "Happy Birthday" to her.

Make a wish!Mmmmmm... delicious lava! Rae got to open a couple of her presents. This little one is from us and it is a......purple unicorn "My Little Pony"! Her mommy and daddy got her real ballet shoes. Raeden has been taking ballet for a little while now and she is very serious about it and does a great job! Happy Birthday, Rae! We can't wait for your magical fantasy unicorn party!

First Day of Spring!

Today was the first day of Spring. Where does the time go?!

Carol and I had a lovely morning. Marina babysat for Aaron & Dani overnight last night and Dakota stayed there too. So it was just the two of us this morning... doesn't happen very often! We got up to a beautiful sunny warm morning for the first day of Spring. We went out to breakfast together at the Sunbreak Cafe in downtown Auburn - our favorite local breakfast spot. It was relly nice to spend that little bit of time together!

After the kids came back home we headed out for an afternoon of Geo-Caching. Found a couple of fun caches. First stop was a tiny little park right here in Auburn that we had no idea was there. It is a little oasis set aside just for the birds and there is a neat tower you can climb up in to watch them. A family of swallows had a nest in one of the birdhouses; we watched the blue-backed daddy swallow swooping around catching bugs over the field while the mommy swallow poked her head out of the birdhouse now and then as if to keep an eye on him.

Our next stop was a tiny park at the top of the hill on the west side of Auburn. Just across the road from the Mountainview Cemetery and with a gorgeous view of Mt. Rainier the park is called "Mountainview Park". Makes sense. And the view is nice.
The kids are so strong... they can hold up the mountain. OK, daddy didn't get the angle of the camera quite right while squinting into the sun... so they're only holding up the top half of the mountain. Geo-Monkey met a new friend... Geo-Deer and got his picture taken with the cache. This cache must've been here for a while. It was made from a REALLY old round Altoids tin... I don't even remember Altoid tins being round!

We headed back down the hill and toward Federal Way. Stopped at the old Blue Heron Outlook Park at the base of Peasley Canyon and found this nice big ammo box cache. We stumbled around looking under all the wrong stumps until Dakota finally thought to climb down a little further and found it quickly. Should've been a quick & easy find but we stumbled around in the bushes longer than we should've. Silly us. Good thing we did this one in early Spring while the stinging nettles, which were abundant, were still nice and small!

Dakota makes the find!

Our last stop of the day was up at West Hylebos Park in Federal Way. We found a nice cache in this park a year or so ago and were pleased to see that there was another cache placed here to find. We love this park and it was a great place for a nice walk on the boardwalk on this gorgeous Spring day. Unfortunately we weren't at our best for caching today I guess. Should've been an easy cache from reading the other logs at www.geocaching.com but for some reason we came up empty handed on this one. But we weren't too disappointed because we had a really great walk through the park. We saw several bunnies, two snakes, a couple of duck families (no baby ducks yet though) and had a blast identifying different types of trees and plants.

It was a lovely, fun day with the family. Happy Spring, Everyone!

TEENAGER!

Thirteen years ago today I held my baby for the first time. I rocked her to sleep and held her late into the night. She was a C-Section baby so Carol was drugged up and fast asleep. Marina was asleep and the hospital was quiet. I just sat and held her, talking to her about all the important things in life, singing hymns to her and praying for the wisdom to be a good dad to her. The weight of that tiny baby in my arms was almost nothing but the weight of responsibility I felt was crushing. It was outweighed only by the amount of love I felt for her that day.

I remember thinking that day of all the landmarks and milestones that lay ahead. And I remember anticipating "someday this sweet, tiny little baby is going to be a big teenager." It seemed so unreal that day. So "far away". One of those things that you know is inevitable but way off on the horizon somewhere. Intangible. But, like a flash, here it is. Thirteen years gone by and my tiny baby cruised through toddler years, little girl years, "I'm-a-big-girl-now" years, elementary years and now we've stepped over the threshold of "teenager years." And I've loved and cherished every one of them.

As she lay in my arms thirteen years ago, I sat staring at her for hours. Soaking it in. Trying to remember exactly what she was like. Urging myself to remember just how much I loved her. And to a degree I can remember what she was like: I can conjur up the feeling of her head cradled against my arm, I can remember the powdery sweetness of her breath, I can remember the smooth softness of her skin as I gently brushed the back of my hand against her cheek. But I can't remember how much I loved her... because I continue to love her more and more every day.

There is no love like a father's love.
Happy Birthday, my sweet Marina!

Holiday Brunch Post-Script

So of course because of my goof-up, thinking I had Dad's name when really Dani had dad for the gift exchange, Aaron was giftless at the Holiday Brunch. I felt really bad. So he had to wait until Christmas Day when we were all together again for his gift.

So here he is, sans delicious brunch, festive Salish Lodge ambience & snowy backdrop, ready to open his Seahawks shirt and Carhartt jeans.

Christmas Dinner 2009

Every second year, this being the "on" year, we have an extended family Christmas Dinner get together at the clubhouse at Grandpa & Grandma Wheeler's park. It is always nice to see everyone.

Rex and Donna...

Grandpa & Grandma Wheeler, mom and Marina with little Reece and her new dolly.

The kids all play pool in the back room. Even Reece.

Aaron & Rex chatting and dad napping...

Enjoying a quiet game of cards.

Mom, Jenn and Kay...

Dakota shows Uncle Aaron his new DS.

My table centerpiece that Grandma asked me to make for the buffet table.