Happy Birthday Mark!

We had a fun day celebrating Mark. We are so glad he is ours. We started the day off with some birthday snuggles and then went downstairs to watch Mark open his presents. After that we headed over to the park to play some tennis. Jared has wanted to play forever.  We bought him a racket about a week ago and everyday he has asked if we could go play. Mark and I used to play in Greeley and some in Rexburg. He played a lot in Rexburg and was happy to be back on the court.  We walked to the park drinking our delicious green smoothies and I just thought about how happy I was to have this cute little family (that does drive me crazy) and be where we are.  Jared and Mark "played" for a bit then Jared was ready to run around the court with Lydia who was a very cute ball girl.  Mark and I had a great time hitting some balls together.

Pretty fun that Jared can take a picture of us.  He often asks if can take a picture.  We just have to remind him to make sure he can see both our heads.

We walked back home and I made crepes of breakfast. We all love crepes.  They are not at all healthy but so delicious.  We like to top then with Nutella, peanut butter, strawberries, peaches, cool whip and Mark likes to throw some ice cream in his.  Again, super unhealthy. As we were finishing up eating we talked about what we wanted to do today. Jared mentioned how much he liked picking peaches last week and Mark thought that was a great idea he loves his fresh peaches so we got ready super fast and headed out to Chilis Orchard for the second time. Last time we got there right when it opened and had the orchard to our selves.  Today we got there closer to 11:30 and there were tons of people there. It was harder to find peaches but we still got a fair amount.  Then we headed home for lunch and naps and Mark got to do what he really loves, play Disc Golf.  The closesst course is about 30 minutes away and he had not had a chance to play yet.  He went over and had a great time. I think he had missed playing and am glad he got to go. He said the course was super nice and challenging. He is really good at Disc Golf so it was nice for him to be challenged.

After naps we decided to check out Onesty Aquatic Center here in Charlottesville. It's no Provo Rec Center but a very fun place.  They have a lazy river, an obstacle course which Jared loved, a zero entry pool with a fun water playground, a water slide (which sadly our kids are too short to go on)  and a swimming pool/diving board.  It was about 75 today and cloudy which I think is great weather for a water park but there was hardly anybody there, on a Saturday afternoon!  It was really nice.  It's only about 10 minutes for our house which is great.

 Lydia really is a little fish.  Jared hates putting his head in water. Lydia will put it in and stay under for a good little while.  It made me nervous at first but she really loves it.  It is nice she is not afraid and just does it herself.  I wonder what she would do it someone made her in a class?

 He could have done this the whole time we were there. It does look pretty cool. 

So much water! 

When we got home Mark grilled some Tri-Tip* (while Jared and Lydia bugged each other outside) one of his favorites and we ate his ice cream birthday cake.  Mark's Mom called and sang him happy birthday with Shannon's family and the cake turned out great. This year he wanted a layer of chocolate ice cream with grasshopper cookies (Jared was slightly confused about the grasshoppers until we told him they were just mint and fudge cookies) and vanilla with Oreos. It was a fun happy day. We really love Mark and are so happy to celebrate him.

 33!

*Out "West" where we used to live we would get Tri-Tip at Costco.  When we went to the Costco here we looked for it (It is Mark's favorite cut of meat ever) and they did not have it. Mark was very disappointed.  A man in the store heard Mark and I talking about it and commented that we must be from California because that is a California cut.  We talked to him for a minute then moved on with our shopping.  A few minutes later he met us and let us know that if we asked the meat guys they would cut some Tri Tip!  Mark was so happy. Sadly he did not have any tips on how to get Tillamok cheese out here.