Birthday Pizza

All of us at the Birrd's nest just love pizza. It's something of an obsession. So, naturally, the boys' birthday celebration ended up involving pizza.

Fish is Five!

My wriggly little Fish is now five years old.

He requested a banana cake with a crocodile on it and chocolate ice cream. We had Glenda and her family over to help us eat it.

We still only ate half the cake, and since Bean's birthday is the day after Fish's and he wanted a strawberry cake, the leftovers went into the freezer.

The boys at our house get pretty excited about birthdays.

What a huge pile of presents!

The Good News Bears

Fish's T-ball team was called the "Good News Bears." They were hilarious to watch. Some of the kids on the team were only three years old. This made for games that looked like they were straight off America's Funniest Home Videos.

I think Fish had a really good time playing Tball.

He was a good hitter and a fast runner

and he scored lots of runs. Of course, that's the great thing about Tball: no strike outs, no outs, no keeping score. Everyone wins!

A Big Finish

Bean had a great final baseball game. He came a long way from his first time at bat. Check out that confident stance: elbow is up, knees are a little bent, and the front foot is ready to step and swing. His last time at bat he showed that evil pitching machine a thing or two.

Run home, Bean, run home!

Yessss!

Little Friends

One Last Evening at Bag End

Our last evening at Bag End was idyllic:

After it got too dark to hang out in the yard, we came inside and the kids played marble race with their cousins.

Yup, we love Marian!

The Second Family Reunion

I mentioned that we went to two reunions while we were on our trip. The second was my side of the family:

Here is a picture of three pilots. On the left is my dad, who flew privately for years, even owning his own aircraft at one point. In the middle is my Badger, who flies commercially for a living. On the right is my uncle Steve, who is a veteran pilot from World War Two. I hear they were having a great conversation. I like this photo because it shows how my roots influenced my choices later in life. Because I grew up with a pilot Dad (and uncle), I was immediately interested in the Badger when I met him because he was heading into an aviation career. And aviation was the icebreaker in reconciling my Dad to my choice of husband. It's difficult to explain, but the whole situation gives me warm fuzzies, as does this photo.

Captivating the Next Generation

When I was a kid my parents took me to a lot of family reunions. On one level I always appreciated them because I have always had a strong sense of family, but most of the time I found them rather dull. It was usually a bunch of old people sitting around in a park shelter talking about old dead cousins and other musty subjects. Sometimes there was a fun cousin that I knew that I could hang out with, but if I didn't recognize anyone there I never had the skills to reach out and connect with strange distant cousins and get them to play with me. Being outgoing was never my strong point.

This year, they put my cousin Anne in charge of the reunion activities. It was a brilliant move. Anne really kicked it up a notch. In addition to a large cooler full of ice cream bars free for the taking, there was a craft table (very popular with my Fish):

and a badminton set (very exciting for Bean):

Anne even got us all dancing the funky chicken at one point, something completely unheard of in my family up to this point:

And while we still were in the traditional park shelter, Anne chose a beautiful park right up next to the mountains with a fun playground.

So there I was, one of the old bodies, sitting around talking about musty old cousins and looking through ancient photo albums but instead of being bored my kids were having a blast. The activities made it easier for them to connect with the other kids there too.

Small, simple changes that made a big difference. Way to go, Anne! We can't wait for 2010!

Lucky Grandma

I love watching my mother enjoy my daughters.

Building Family History

On one of our last days in Utah, the Badger took our boys on a long hike up the Timpooneke Trail on Mount Timpanogos, one of the most beautiful alpine hiking trails in the world. Both the Badger and I have wonderful memories of this trail as children and we want to pass this legacy on to our children. Looks like the Badger did a good job.