Birthdays Galore!

The past month has been a busy, but fun and celebratory one. We have celebrated four birthdays in the past three weeks! Two of them included parties, and one, a camping trip to Sequoia National Park - so much fun!

The first birthday party was my good friend, Lisa's. She had a very creative Superhero themed birthday party. Gabe and I dressed up as Wolverine and Rogue, respectively, from the X-Men series. We had a lot of fun being resourceful and making our own costumes. I think they turned out pretty good! Not everyone dressed up, but everyone had a great "back story" on their character's superpowers, costume or not. We ate, chatted, and played a variety of superhero games - I KILLED at the X-ray vision game! (Don't worry, no people or clothes involved, just a bag full of items you had to identify and describe without using your eyes).

Gabe and me as Wolverine and Rogue from X-Men


Lisa, the birthday girl, and me. She was a personality enchantress...or something!

Next, was my mom's birthday. We had dinner with my mom and dad at their house - wonderful food, low key atmosphere, and just a time to relax and catch up.
The following day we went to my cousin Megan's house for her birthday. It's hard to believe the baby of the family just turned 24! WOW! We had tons of fun, as usual, being loud and obnoxious and rowdy. Good food, good family, good fellowship makes for a mighty fine time!


A fuzzy, but cute pic of the B-day...........................Mom and Dad
girl and her yummy cuppy-cakes.



Ryan & Katie...gettin' married in .........Awwww, how cute!
1 month...woo hoo!!


DeeDee and Aunt Debs...sisters, sisters!............Darren and Momma Fran

I took last Friday off so that Gabe and I could drive up to Ventura Thursday night and meet up with our good friends Natalie and Robeson. We stopped in Simi Valley to pick up some sleeping bags (thank you sooooo much McCartys!) and rolled into Ventura around midnight. We stayed there, then got an early start up to Sequioa on Friday morning for Robeson's birthday weekend. Robeson was supposed to go to the Sequoias when he was around 10 years old, but the trip got cancelled when the family had an accident on their way out. Robeson has wanted to visit ever since, so Natalie organized and planned this great trip for us all. It was really a great weekend! Despite freezing nights and showers by flashlight, the trip was wonderful. Beautiful days, lovely hikes, great food, very few people and quite a few bears made for great memories. We had such a great time with the Tinsleys and can't wait to do it again. Yosemite in the fall, perhaps? Thanks, guys, for a great time! (P.S. Readers, the pictures of this trip are in the next post)