Wait for iiiiiitt...35!

What?!

So here I am at the age of 35. 

But in many ways I’m not quite sure that I am any more mature than I was at the age of 17. Maybe a little more experienced in some areas of life, but still not quite grown up.

It was a beautiful birthday. Truly. And it actually started on Sunday when we invited dear friends over for dessert and they brought a candle to sing to me when we ate our dirt cake.

On my actual birthday I made it to the gym, out to lunch with friends, and spent time at home with my kids. I even had a group of teenage boys sing happy birthday to me. And then I made them answer 35 questions about me and promised $5 to the person who got the most right (See kind of immature still...haha). Kyler won, Kacin was a close second and if you combine David and Brighton’s score you would get half of my age. I was happy enough that they played along. Ha!

We went out to dinner as a family. Which is always and forever an adventure for us.

We picked up a whole box of Crumbl cookies. They are a love of mine. We cut them all up so we could try some of each one. Then my family sang happy birthday once more.

They gave me the most thoughtful gifts.

A treat from Brinns.

A creative display of love and my favorite pens from L. Best girls forever!!

Perry has this spectacular idea on his own to give me Uno attack. He loves uno! And I’m excited to play with him.

That grin!

Kyler wins most creative gift giver of the year. He created a “Psych Piscary” in honor of my favorite show, Psych.

He had me go fishing and I would catch a pineapple paper. Each paper had a clue that led me somewhere to receive a gift. All of the clues were Psych quotes! I loved the gifts (Cap’n Crunch, donuts, coupons for chores, etc), the creativity, the puzzling of the clues, and that it was Psych!

I love him!

Kacin (my hair twin!!) gave me Psych ring tones for my phone. Now every time someone texts or calls or emails I can’t help but smile and be happy.

“Whipped butter, maple syrup, what?!”

“You know that’s right.” 

“Hit the jackel switch.”

“Wait for iiiiitt!”

“Labradoodle! Where?”

And Brinna’s favorite (she walks around saying it all the time!)

“Boom, boom, boom...muffins!”

He’s the best.

E brought me to tears. He went above and beyond on this birthday. Not only did he give me chat books of my cancer story and a fog machine and a new speaker for our dance parties, but he gave me ballet shoes and found an adult ballet class I could go to. One of my biggest regrets is not dancing more as a little girl. I took ballet classes in college and I loved them. By no means am I a “dancer”, but dancing and movement is of the highest importance to me and I love it. So I was pretty excited about that thoughtful gift.

We ended the night with a dance party! And broke out the fog machine (which Brinny was terrified of, even before it set the fire alarm off once).

Last year was such a rough birthday—I was full of anxiety and gearing up for port surgery and to start chemo the next day. This year was a much, much better way to celebrate another year on this earth! I’m so grateful for every year and every day I get to live this beautiful, crazy life.

the sixth week of summer

It felt so good to be reunited with our oldest boys on that saturday night after their week at efy. They had an absolutely amazing experience and grew so much from the week. But it's always so good to be back all together. We picked them up from the airport in Las Vegas and then spent one night at a hotel (note: this was the first hotel stay that we have ever gotten two rooms--usually we just make two of the kids sleep on a camping pad on the floor. for some reason, we decided to splurge and everyone got a bed. exciting stuff, worthy of a hallway dance party, haha).

Sunday morning we met up with my brother in law, Tyson at the air force base in Vegas. He had just arrived the night before to start weapons school (think Top Gun). Since they've been in Japan for the last few years, it had been a long time since we've seen him. He met Brinna for the first time! She loved him, of course.

We got a quick tour of the base before he had to get to his orientation and we had to get on the road.

We drove through lots of traffic to get to california. We spent sunday evening through Tuesday jumping between Huntington and Newport beaches. It was exactly what our family needed--sun, salt water, sand, no schedule, and time together.

Sunset at huntington beach was spectacular--the most golden of hours.





























Kacin gets the credit for all the fun of this deep hole.


























He was trapped so he couldn't stop Layla and I from giving him great big kisses on his cheeks.



The Brinns wanted in on that action.



He was more receptive to two year old kisses.





The moon, the sunset--such a feeling to breathe it all in.





Dad got us some yummy donuts.





Kyler came home with this gnarly sand bruise/scrape (this picture was a few days into healing and it looked much worse in person). The waves at Newport were HUGE and knocked everyone who got in down a few times. Kyler's face ended up on the sand when a wave pulled him and held him under. He saw stars and ended up with an awful headache. Possible concussion? Who knows?? Because, of course, he didn't bother to tell me about his dangerous experience until long after the fact. (That is sometimes a problem with tough boys who just get up and keep going).



We got home on Tuesday just in time to dress like cows for a free meal at chick-fil-a.

We spent the rest of the week at various doctors appointments and preparing for Layla's baptism. Then that wonderful, full day of baptism, lunch with friends and family, and swimming arrived.

And I got to show the video I put together with all these cute pictures of this sweet girl who we were celebrating.

That left us with just one more week of summer....