Haley turns 10

On Haley's actual birthday she finally got her presents from us. We got her a DS lite and some games and some clothes. Not to mention getting her ears pierced the week before. She was so excited to get her own DS. Zach wanted to go and race his bike that night so Haley said ok as long as she could take her DS and play it. The girls spent most of the time playing the DSs. We all came home covered in mosquito bites.

Luke brought his bike and every time he parked it he had to make sure he put rocks by each wheel, including training, so that it wouldn't get away. We weren't on a hill or anything. I thought it was pretty funny!!
Haley showing off her new DS.
Haley really wanted a Texas Sheet Cake. I didn't really want a cake that big since we'd be having it after the race and it was just us. But I did it for her anyway.
I still can't believe I have a 10 year old. They grow up way too fast. She's constantly telling me she's a preteen. We love her and are so glad she joined our family 10 years ago. Happy Birthday Haley!!

Birthday Dinner

We got together with my family on the 19th to celebrate the September birthdays. September has the most birthdays with 4. We had a yummy dinner and then homemade peach ice cream. Luke was so excited to help Grandpa with the ice cream. He likes putting in the ice and salt. He kept asking if it was time to make it.

I took Haley to get her ears pierced for her birthday on the 15th. She wouldn't let me tell anyone that we'd done it. She wanted to show them. She went back and forth and finally decided to do it. She's been thinking about it ever since Emmy got hers done almost two years ago.
Because Haley's birthday was only two days away and she wouldn't be seeing family on her birthday she got her presents that night. Jill's family gave her a Zhu Zhu pet, which she didn't act to happy about but she's loved it. I think she was just really excited to get her new Pokemon DS game from Grandma and Grandpa. Which she knew she was getting since she'd been shopping with Grandma the week before.

Haley's 10th Birthday Party

Haley turned 10 this year. We let the kids have a party with their friends every other year so Haley decided on a detective party. The invitation said that we needed help finding her birthday cake.

Each girl was given a notebook when they got here. This would be used for some of the games we had planned.
We put 15 items on this serving tray and the girls got to look at it for 45 seconds and then see how many things they could list in their notebooks. I think the highest number was 12 or 13.
We also had four jars filled with different types of candy and they got to guess how many pieces of candy was in each jar. The closest won the candy.
Then they were sent on a treasure hunt to find the missing cake/cupcakes. The hunt was a little more challenging. Zach had a lot of fun preparing the hunt for them. He had some pretty cleaver clues. One clue sent them to the ipod in Luke's room which they had to search for the clue. When they found the song to play it sent them running to the car. One clue they had to sit and write down some letters in a certain way in their notebooks.
We had a lot of fun at Haley's party. I wasn't quite sure what to do for her party but once we found the idea we just went with it and it turned out great!

Sun Valley

Zach and I went to Sun Valley Idaho for five days. We left Saturday morning and came home Wednesday afternoon. We couldn't pass up this picture of Zach in his enjoy Coke shirt in front of the Deli and Coke displays. There wasn't much for him to do on Saturday when we got there since his trade show booth was already set up when we go there. All week we'd been planning on seeing Despicable Me and were sad to learn that they'd changed out the movies and were no longer showing it.

The Opera House is in the background. We were able to see Salt there on our last night. It was a weird movie. Kind of nice that there were only 5 people in the theatre.
On Sunday Zach was in the trade show for most of the afternoon. That night we had a nice buffet dinner. I enjoyed lots of fresh fruit and other stuff. The dessert buffet was so good and there were way too many choices.
I was really missing the kids on Sunday night and so I didn't really enjoy the ice show. We left a little early but did enjoy what we saw.
On Monday, Zach worked in the morning and I spent time in the room and lobby reading, Mockingjay. We went on a run on the nice trails they have there. Next time we need to go for the run before we have lunch. That night we went to a BBQ and entertainment by Jon Schmidt. It was a lot of fun.
On Tuesday after the Trade Show was over and put away we headed over to Bald Mountain to ride the Gondola and have some lunch. It was so cold up at the top of the mountain.




I think the whole time we were over at Bald Mountain Zach was wishing he could ditch me and go rent a mountain bike and go for a ride. Or rather wishing he'd brought bike stuff instead of running stuff so he could go out and bike, mountain or road.
We were considering coming home Tuesday night but ended up staying. The fancy dinner was okay and we went and saw Salt instead of going to the Tribute to John Denver, or whatever it was.

On Wednesday night I looked at my bed and told Zach I wasn't sure I could get in without it being turned down with a little box of chocolates. It was nice to get away but we missed the kids most of the time. We are looking forward to taking the kids up there sometime so they can see it.