Birthdays!

I had a great birthday yesterday. I loved getting so many emails and cards in the mail. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. Getting mail is one of my very most favorite things! I love to send it now that I am home. I am not sure what the deal was but I was just really excited about my birthday this year. Maybe it was just because I was home and not in a foreign country. We opened presents in the morning and Mark made me breakfast; my most favorite orange rolls that we only got to eat on Christmas day growing up. Since I have not been at home I have them on my birthday now too. Sometimes it is so hard to not buy them when I am at the grocery store but traditions are worth it! We went to the store Saturday night to pick out my ice cream cake and we found one and grabbed it without realizing that it was actually an ice cream pie so that was pretty silly but it still tasted great.

The preschool class I work with made me this crown and poster sized birthday card. I walked to the door and it was taped up in the door frame. It was cute. One of the teachers made me cupcakes too. It was really nice and a great surprise. The teacher who made the crown wanted to put 16 but the other teachers said it was too young so she settled for 21. I was such a good sport that I wore my crown all throughout the school so everyone looked really surprised that it said 21 (or maybe it was because I was wearing a silly crown...?) I did my best to correct them first: that I was actually 26 and second that I was not going out to party that night since they originally thought I was 21.

Cute pajamas Mark bought me and off to the side (right) you can see the way cute Christmas wall hanging that my oh so talented sister Susanna made for me.

Birthday Pie, next year we will check the box closer but it was still delicious.

NOVEMBER 23 2007
Last year for my birthday Mark took me over to Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula and we went snorkeling and climbed Mount Sinai. It was a great way to celebrate my 25th birthday. So here are a few pictures from last year.

Dahab is an incredible place to go snorkeling. We went to a place called the Blue Hole and you walk down a little ramp and put your head in the water, start swimming and there were the fish! We saw so many amazing kinds and so many of them. It may sound funny but if you ever plan a snorkeling trip go to Dahab in Egypt! It was truly incredible! I am not sure if you can tell but the water was such a pretty blue and so clear.

This is when we started hiking back down. We hiked up at 2:30 in the morning so we could get to the top by sunrise. It was so so so cold!! And dark too so we waited to take a picture. It was a cool hike. At the top there were all kinds of Christian groups from all over the world having little sermons. Well they were actually singing and praying really loud and were very distracting but, I hope that it was a nice spiritual experience for them. To each their own. We just enjoyed the view and thinking of what "might" have happened there. It was well worth it.



After the hike. Mount Sinai is out in the middle of nowhere so we stayed at this little Beduoin camp. These are the headdresses the locals wear.

AUGUST 09 2008
And finally I decided to go ahead and put up pictures from Mark's birthday in August we had just moved to Colorado and our friend Bethany took us to Casa Bonita a Mexcian (duh, huh) restaurant in Denver. We didn't really go for the food, honestly its not that good but for the atmosphere. They have a live Mariachi band, cliff divers, and old arcade games. It was a fun trip.
We did actually get Mark a ice cream birthday cake!

Bethany, Aprillee, and Mark outside Casa Bonita



The Birthday boy! (handsome man that he is)



Mark stomping the spiders! (hard worker that he is!)



Look at the form!
(Mark is such a good sport and so fun to be around, everyone feels comfortable around him)



Bethany and Aprillee racing. As a side note, I stink at these racing games! I spend most of my time running into the walls or going the wrong way!

Mark wouldn't really approve of those side comments but I just appreciate him so much! He is a wonderful husband and friend.