Shakes, Bear Lake, and Birthday Cake!

Darren's birthday was a couple weekends ago and we had a whole weekend of fun! That is how I think birthdays should be - a whole weekend (or week) devoted to the birthday boy or girl. I tried to make Darren's day special, and we had a lot of fun! It started on Thursday. Darren's office found out that it was his birthday and planned a little lunch for him and invited me and the kids, so we brought in a cake and surprised Darren. Well...sort of surprised him! Logan told Darren right before he left for work, "See ya at our office to have some cake!" I guess he is not at a good age to disclose secrets right now! Logan was very excited all day to go pick up the birthday cake and go to Darren's office. The funny thing is the 2 times that we have visited Darren's office, they have had pizza, so I think Logan thinks that Daddy just goes to work to eat pizza! Everyone at the office love the kids and they have fun going in there.Darren and the kids at his officeRylee and her messy cake face!!! Isn't she cute?

Friday was Darren's actual birthday. He had planned to work most of the day, but a lot of his patients for the day fell through so he decided to just take the day off. We have been trying to go up to Bear Lake all summer, so we decided it would be the perfect day to do that. We were very excited to have a fun day up there and take a drive up the canyon. We love living in such a beautiful place, close to so many fun things to do.

Logan was SO excited to give Darren his birthday present so we HAD to do that before we left! Logan was very funny about buying Darren's gift. He insisted that we get Darren a rocket! I have no idea where this came from, but he was very persistent! When we went shopping, he just kept saying that daddy needed a rocket. We were at Michael's and they had these 2 little rockets that you can launch and Logan thought it would be perfect for him and Dad to do together. The funny thing is he kept telling Darren that he got him a rocket for his birthday and Darren just thought he was making up things! It was one surprise that Logan didn't really ruin since Darren didn't believe him. We opened half his presents in the morning and the other half later. In the morning, Darren opened his rockets, some new tennis shoes and a movie.

The kids and D after opening presents

We really loved our drive up the canyon. It is about a 45 minute drive up to the lake and it is so beautiful! We stopped at a lookout on the way up to look at the lake. The kids were sleeping so Darren and I just got out for a bit. Bear Lake has the most beautiful bright blue water - The photo does not do it justice!Rylee slept the whole way up and then some and Logan slept for a good part of the drive so we drove around the Lake for awhile. It is such a fun place!A big reason for our visit was to get some famous Bear Lake raspberry shakes so we went to the cute little drive-in restaurant for some lunch and shakes. They were delicious!!!

While we were driving around the lake, we found a beach that looked like a good place to go. We decided to take the kids and play on the beach for awhile. For some reason, the only thing I remember about the Bear Lake water is that it is cold, so I didn't think the kids would want to get in. We found a place that was a really shallow inlet and the kids were loving it and the water was so warm. We decided to get them in their suits and let them play. I wasn't sure if it would last too long, but they had a great time for about an hour! Logan's favorite was the seashells! He kept saying "There are seashells EVERYWHERE! They are all over the place!" He was picking them up and inspecting them and having a great time. He was also playing like we were all characters from Nemo. Such a funny kid! Rylee loved it all! She was digging in all the sand and mud and splashing in the water. It was great for her because it wasn't deep at all so she could run in the water or sit and it wasn't too deep for her. We also had fun playing in the sand too. Logan liked that he could write in the sand and thought it was neat when I wrote his name. We had a great time and were so tired by the time we were done! We stripped the kids down and got all the sand off and got them in the car and headed home. On the way out, we picked up some fresh Bear Lake raspberries. We had such a great time, we are hoping to make one more trip before the weather gets cold! I took a lot of photos...Here are a few of my favorites and a slide show of the rest! I love these ones of the kids standing on this rock - Logan's latest favorite pose is flexing! What a cute muscle man!

Logan running and splashing in the water

Rylee digging in the sand! She loves to be a mess!

Logan with his name in the sand!

Rylee with her name in the sand

Darren and the kids. I don't know if you can tell, but it says 29 in the sand. That is old Darren turned!

I think this picture is so cute - My favorite part is Rylee cheesing it! She loves to pose! Rylee and DaddyMe and the kids - I had to take this one to prove I was there! I don't think I was in any other pictures.

After we got home, Darren opened the rest of his presents. He got some new clothes and a David Beckham jersey and autobiography. I thought that I would get more of an excited reaction over the jersey since he LOVES David Beckham and is always looking at the jerseys at sport stores, but I'm not sure it was as cool as I thought it would be. I also arranged for my sister to come up and babysit so that Darren and I could go to dinner and a movie. This was also supposed to be a surprise, but Darren somehow figured it out - What a bum! We ate dinner at Chili's and then went to see the Indiana Jones movie. It was pretty good, although the ending was totally bizarre, but fun to have a date night. After the movie, we came home and had cake and ice cream. I had planned to make another cake, but we were gone all day and I didn't want to waste the cake we already had from the day before, so we used the half eaten cake. It looks a little ghetto in the pictures, but it still tasted good!

Blowing out the candles - That is Logan and Rylee's favorite part!

Eating cake!
Rylee and her messy face!

Happy #29 Babe! We hope you had a great day - You deserve it! We all love you! We are so lucky to have such a great husband and dad! You are the best!