Birthday Surprise

To this day, I still remember an awesome surprise birthday my parents gave me when I was in elementary school.  I remember going to my neighbor's house and she walking me back to my house with something in a paper bag (turns out it was a birthday present for me).  When I came inside I was shocked to find friends from school and just felt so loved.  So I wanted to pass that feeling along to my dear daughter.

There was actually 2 surprises.  The whole week previous Cloudburst had not been allowed in her room while I painted and redecorated.  I had wanted to get my little bookworm some bookshelves.  We told her she could see her room on Saturday morning.  But we added in a few other surprises too!

After the big reveal, we headed downstairs to eat pizza and decorate cupcakes and aprons.  It was a whirlwind week getting everything ready, but so worth it.  Cloudburst was buzzed the whole day, talking about how surprised she was when she opened the door.  She is now 9 years old and I can't believe how the time has passed so quickly.  Cloudburst is almost finished with 3rd grade.  She's been doing very well in math and reading and is starting to like volleyball.  She is still the biggest dare devil in the family.

And here are a few before/after pictures.  I just painted over all those flowers and the wall has a cool texture now.

On guard!

Growing up in NY, we got together twice a year with my Aunt and Uncle down in Pennsylvania.  I have so many memories of Thanksgiving dinners, Easter Egg hunts and cabin vacations in the Adirondacks with them.  When I came to live out west, I didn't see them for many years.  So it was wonderful when my Aunt sent me a message saying that my cousin had a fencing tournament out here.  We invited them to stay with us and had a great time!

We went up to the cabin for a few days, since they came over a long weekend.

My aunt and cousin both said how much fun it was to just play in some good snow.

So... the children buried my cousin!  Supposedly, he asked for it??

We went sledding many times and even made a pretty good jump.

Here is my Aunt with Cloudburst.  My Aunt is a brilliant lawyer and engineer and loves to promote math and science, especially for girls.  She coaches a math team at my cousin's high school.

She was so wonderful with our kids.  She sat down with each of them and just got them so inspired and excited about math!

She even told me about an awesome summer camp called Camp Invention that our kids are now signed up for. 

After a couple days of fun, it was time for my cousin's fencing tournament.

He did fairly well for his age and we all loved seeing a new sport (even if we didn't understand how the scoring works).

My Aunt even found the kids a few swords of their own.  A great few days!

Locks of Love

Around Valentine's Day every year, our school has an entire Love and Appreciation week, culminating with a Locks of Love assembly where students can donate 10-12 inches of hair to make wigs for needy children and adults.  Cloudburst was so excited to be able to get up in front of the whole school and donate her hair. And I was the lucky one who got to cut it! The whole family was able to watch and we were all proud of her making this choice.

Las Vegas plus...

Thunder's cousin invited us to his wedding to be held at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas.  We were excited to have see Nana and Papa and many extended family members Thunder hadn't seen in years... many since our own wedding.  It was so fun to reconnect and see what everyone is up to.

Even though this is a horrible picture, we were excited to get it!  It is Papa with his two brothers.  It's been a while since they have all been together.

While we were in town, we went to a wild animal exhibit at Mandalay Bay.  The boys were in heaven.

You can even "pet" stingrays!  Sunrise wasn't so interested in that.

I was not adventurous as the rest of the family and did not join them for a swim.  It was only in the 70's, and I can wait for summer to don my suit.  But the kids had a blast, swimming outdoors in February.

Thunder had many fond memories of going to Circus Circus as a child, so we went there too.  They have an awesome little ice-cream shop that rotates amid the rest of the arcade games.

And this is where our trip was supposed to end.  Wedding in Vegas, then go back home.  But then Thunder got a crazy idea.  We were only 3 hours from Disney Land... what if we missed 1 day of school and were totally spontaneous???  What if we threw caution to the wind and just were crazy for a day???  We loaded up the car and didn't even tell the kids.  We just pretended we were driving back home.  They watched a few movies and didn't even notice the palm trees as we got closer.  When we stopped the car next to the sign for Disney Land, they first were just confused.  Then the cheers erupted!  We stopped by Huntington Beach on the day we drove over and met some friends for dinner.

We were also able to meet up with Thunder's aunt and family.  We haven't seen their triplet children since they were seven years old, and now they are in high school.  Our kids loved talking to them about sports and school.

And of course we had a great day in Disney Land!  It was a little cold and rainy, but it didn't bother us at all.  It just made the wimpy Californians stay home!  We had little to no wait on most rides and it was hard to imagine what it will be like in the summer when most people go.

We had one whirlwind day and then we drove home!  It was so exhilarating to be spontaneous and do something so totally not normal for us.  And the kids even kept their promise not to complain on the 8 hour ride home.