FOURTEEN. It's been fourteen years since that day.
The day we remember every year...and also the day we celebrate!
Happy Birthday Ava! We sure do love you.
We were really racking our brains with how to best celebrate the day. How could we top the weekend before when Matt treated us to Taylor Swift?! Well we couldn't. Mallerie would be taking the ACT on Saturday morning so she said, "Ava, on Friday night you can't have a bunch of screaming girls running around, I have to go to bed early." We decided to accommodate her on this.
When I was on my way to Cal's 2nd birthday party in Lehi last Wednesday I needed to stop at the Riverwoods. I saw Provo Beach Resort and said, "Ah ha, that is it." I ran the idea by Ava the next day and she said it sounded like a lot of fun. She really only ever hangs out with her two besties Ana and Rachel so it was easy to make the guest list. I picked them up from School and when the babies were home we headed out.
They wanted to try out the ropes course first thing.
Callie wanted to try it too and was just tall enough. However, after the first obstacle with her crying and barely moving I could see it was not going to work for her to continue. The problem was that there is not a way to get down without going back. The employee was kind and coached her along. It was sad to watch but I kept saying, "You tried and you did it!" She had the kids play area to herself while Graham and I finished the course.
Both Graham and Callie declared the playground the best playground in the WORLD. The fact that Graham could hang upside down like Spidey was one of the perks.
Matt was in McCall Idaho and wouldn't be home until 8:30 pm. I emailed him our plans and told him: Gray says he is going to stay home this evening. Grayson said, "That can be my birthday gift to Ava." Isn't that the saddest thing you have ever heard? It is sad because it IS the best gift he could give to her :(
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| Pack-rat-Callie said she wanted to keep the food containers to make a treasure box when she gets home. |
We ate the facility. Correction, we ate AT the facility. It is nice that it isn't crowded there, but I don't want it to go under either. It is a really fun place! It is nice and clean and has a variety of activities. One hit song after another was playing and we sang along out loud. We bowled and played mini crochet among other things.
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| An outside shot of the inside carousel. |
I took the babes for a stroll through the Riverwoods. There was a live band playing and they loved looking through Blickenstaffs, the vintage toy store.
Oh boy, what do we have here. A Jurassic Park video game!? Their passes only came with a few games and I was glad, Graham would have stayed there the entire night. Time ran out and they had to swipe their card to keep going. Graham was frantically swiping cards on both he and Callie's side. Hers started back up and Graham begged, "Callie, let me do it" She said, "No! Your side is over!" and with added confidence from laser tag, she proceeded to machine gun the dinosaurs with such fierceness it frightened me a little.
With the few points they accumulated they each chose...a plastic dinosaur.
Throughout the building there are picnic tables with cabanas around them. We curtained ours off and had our celebration inside. I wasn't sure the staff would be thrilled with me lighting candles. However, since I am one to ask forgiveness instead of permission, I lit away.
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| Red Velvet...if you please. |
The big downer was that Ava had the worst cold. She always has a cold it seems, one leads right into the next. She told me, "I think something is wrong with me." Hopefully all these colds are giving her a powerhouse immune system. This cold was a drippy-nose cold, which would not stop running. Her nose was raw. Truthfully, had it not been her birthday, I bet she would have opted to stay home -- even on Friday night.
I forced her to party.
Before I picked her up from school that day I stopped at Maurices to get Ava some earrings. At home she opened up few gifts then reached for the small gift bag. I said, "You can't open that one yet." I asked her to go water the garden. While she was outside I got the earrings from the van and put them in the empty gift bag. Her friends laughed at me when they saw me do this. I told them, "Now you can see why she couldn't open this one yet...there wasn't anything in the bag!"
Before I picked her up from school that day I stopped at Maurices to get Ava some earrings. At home she opened up few gifts then reached for the small gift bag. I said, "You can't open that one yet." I asked her to go water the garden. While she was outside I got the earrings from the van and put them in the empty gift bag. Her friends laughed at me when they saw me do this. I told them, "Now you can see why she couldn't open this one yet...there wasn't anything in the bag!"
You know, her pose is actually harder to do than I thought it would be. The trick is in the fingers I learned. Also she reminded me, "You did cool-lips mom, cool-lips is Katrina's thing."
Ava told me I needed to ride on the gorilla when we went on the carousel. I could barely get my legs around that thing. I felt like I had been riding a horse when I got off. When I told her this she laughed and said, "I know."
You treated us well Provo Beach Resort, you treated us well.
