Gary’s Birthday Weekend

This past Saturday was Gary’s birthday!  Out of respect for Gary’s privacy, I will not disclose Gary’s age.  We started celebrating on Friday night when we had some strawberry cake. . . .

I told Gary that on Saturday we would do whatever he wanted to do.  He decided that he wanted to go to Tannehill State Park. 

After breakfast, I put the big girls’ hair into pigtails.  I had to give Piper a sucker to convince her to let me put her hair into pigtails.  I had to give Rosemary TWO suckers.  Somehow I even ended up giving Henry a sucker, and he wasn’t even in the running to get some pigtails.

Then when Penelope woke up from her nap on Saturday morning we all took off.  We stopped on the way at Bojangles to grab a box of chicken and biscuits.  Until Saturday, we’ve never just let the kids eat a leg or whatever of chicken, but instead we would take the chicken off the bone for them.  We had to do a lot of explaining about not eating the bone. 

But the kids eventually figured it all out.  And then they figured out that they could feed some of their biscuits to the ducks.  After the ducks were nice and full, we started our hike.  The kids were thrilled.

Especially Penelope.  She LOVED being in the carrier, and spent the first part of the hike laughing and giggling and kicking her legs.

She seemed pretty happy to be in one place, but the kids loved being able to run everywhere.  Though Rosemary wasn’t very fond of the feel of her pigtails bouncing while she ran.  She kept holding onto them while running.

We spent most of our hike near water, and we stopped a lot just to look and enjoy our surroundings.

The kids really seemed to be soaking in all the nature.

And we spent some time just hanging out together.

Eventually the kids started to get a little tired.  They fought it, but you could see that we were going to have to leave sooner rather than later.

But everyone perked up a bit when we found a bug for our bug jar.

But even with the bug and the beautiful weather, and despite the wonderful day that we were having, we knew that we were going to have to go home soon.  But every time we asked Henry or Rosemary if they were ready go to, they said, “No go!  No go!!”  Piper was a little more quiet and I think she was secretly wishing for her afternoon nap.

Later that night, Auntie Ann came over and kept the kids while we went out to dinner.  Gary declared it a perfect birthday.  I have to agree.  Happy Birthday, Gary!!!