Birthday, wedding, Great wolf lodge

What a fun weekend, with family and wonderful friends and summer-like weather! To start off the festivities we had a birthday party for myself and Uncle Kevin, (Bret's Brother) as it so happends, we have the same birthday! He of course, is a bit younger than myself. John and Marilyn came from Omaha, which was a wonderful treat to have them here. They flew in from Spokane to help watch Sherri and Derrick's kids while they go to Mexico! So jealous! Anyway they brought over Austin and Bryce for the party to play with my boys, and also Addy and Brinley came from Des Moines. So we had a house full of cousins, aunts and uncles, grandma and grandpa. We missed you Sheri and Derrick and little Chase! But we had a great time chowing down on pizza, salad, and chicken. Ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, and cupcakes. Yummy!

Cousin Austin

Showing us his new CTR ring.

"It says shoose da wite."

Showing us his bear shirt :)

Brinley and Marilyn watching the presents being opened. Not as exciting as a kids party.

All the cousins having a great time!

And of course the birthday girl. One year older.

(Not sure how I feel about that)

Friday we had the kids stay home from school so we could drive to the Winter Quarters Temple and watch Eric Buell and his lovely bride to be get married. What an exciting time. I Love temple weddings. It just reminds me of what is really important in my life. I can get so caught up in day to day living that I sometimes need a slap in the face every so often. I'm also such a dork as well, I didn't take one picture at the temple or the luncheon afterward. (stupid!)

After we ate, and after Bret thoroughly embarrassed the crap out of me in front of EVERYONE, we left, and headed down to Kansas City to The Great Wolf Lodge. Which I again didn't take one picture! I forgot my camera, and was just having so much fun that I didn't take any with my camera phone. (Stupid again!)

Friday night we went swimming and water sliding, and all kinds of running around in our swimming suits getting sprayed and dumped on with water. The kids are now at an age where I don't need to worry about them much. We put a life jacket on Keaton and let him loose. So since I did not have much to do, After a few water slide trips, I went and relaxed in the big "adults only" hot tub. It's huge and quite hot!!

We had dinner at the Olive Garden quite late, like 8:30, then came home and crashed. The next morning was breakfast and the kids played, Magic Quest, which is a game they have set up all over the hotel, you have to buy one of the special wands, then go around the lobby and all over the rest of the hotel and fight dragons, and find treasure, and all kinds of magic spell-mid-evil adventures. Its a interactive game and the wand is connected to all these things and actually works like a real wand. It's quite cool. Bret and I hung out at Cabellas while Amber and the boys did their wand thing and then Bret took the boys swimming again, I didn't really want to do that and neither did Amber, so we went shopping. Always fun to do that. It was also 90 degrees!!! It felt so good to be in shorts and sandals again, and actually hot!

That evening we went to the wedding reception, (the main purpose for the trip) and had such a wonderful time eating good food, dancing, and seeing old friends again. I've learned that Ben, Sam, and especially Keaton are quite the dancers. I did manage to take some pictures of this with my camera phone, but it was so dark that none of them turned out. Hopefully I'll get some sent to me from the Buells. It was also fun to dance with Bret, he's such a good dancer. We don't do that enough. After a late night we all went to bed, tired and happy. We drove back Sunday after attending church with the Buells, and having lunch with their wonderful, loving, sooo fun family, back to reality, and housework.

Oh I forgot to tell you all what I got for my birthday. I got a 12 ft step ladder (which I wanted) I got a 22 inch LCD tv for my work out room, a sent lock hunting vest, a hunting cap, and hunting fanny pack. Also a lovely necklace and earrings from Jennie and Kevin, and an absolutely wonderful new cookbook from Sheri, which I read on the way to Kansas City and I love it! I also got a Luminok arrow tip, and a grunt tube. (Bret thought I needed all my own hunting stuff ) and Amber got me a tapestry which has the picture of the signing of the declaration of independance. It was a great haul this year!!

Thanks everyone!!!