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Thursday, September 11, 2014

Cake and Candles

This past year has been one of many "milepost" birthdays in our family.  Caleb turned 16 last October, then Rebecca turned 21, Nathan turned 18 and Nana turned 75! 

I don't have any photos from Caleb's 16th, and I'm not sure how that happened.  Suffice it to say that he can now drive a car. And for his cake he requested an entire maple-glazed ham. 

Rebecca turned 21 on Feb. 22nd.  We surprised her by inviting Steve and Lisa down from Kentucky to spend the weekend.  For a special gift, we bought her an original edition of  21 Balloons, one of her favorite children's books.  I felt like this book signified the big adventure of life that she is embarking on.  To go along with that, we got her a necklace of a house being pulled by balloons - just like the movie Up.  Terry offered to take her up in a tethered hot-air balloon, but she declined.  



We couldn't get the extended family together for another few weeks, so we had another party then.  We tried these candles that were supposed to have different colored flames:





Then the boys got really goofy with the balloons and totally cracked up the birthday girl:




In fact, I was laughing so hard that the camera shook and the shots are blurry:


Nathan had a milestone birthday in June.  We celebrated with a surprise party at the lake.  One of his soccer buddies has the exact same birthday, and one is just a few days younger.  






We gave Nathan the gift of a trip to Colorado to see his friend, Noah Smith.  They enjoyed hiking and some professional soccer:



Last but not least of the birthday updates, we also celebrated Nana's 75th birthday in June.  All her children and grandchildren were there.  One of the cool things we did was wear birthday hats with photos on them of Nana at the same age of the wearer.  




A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun.  Enjoy the trip!