Life Is But A Dream: A Decade of Smiles

I've said it before, and I'll say it again--I can never think of my Avery without smiling! And this week we celebrated a whole decade (wow!) of smiles as our fine young man had his tenth birthday! Woohoo! Happy Birthday to an amazing, brilliant, wonderful son!

I absolutely love our children's birthdays, particularly the opportunity it gives us to celebrate and honor each child all by him/herself. So we started the celebrating early for Avery and had a special family day on the Saturday before his special day. We went to a local museum called the Wildlife Experience, hoping to explore their display on geocaching and experience their indoor geocaching maze. But, we got extra lucky, because we arrived just as they were doing a real life geocaching class outdoors on the museum property, using real GPS devices, to locate 4 actual caches. What fun! It was an adventure, a learning experience, and a fun time all wrapped into one. Here are a few pictures of this great event:

Our first cache! The kiddos were getting used to using the GPS devices with some instruction from the museum staff.

Here is Chase exploring his GPS device.

Chase is leaving a message in the notebook at one of the outdoor geocache locations.

Here's our birthday boy having fun! He is holding some little plastic frogs that were the little prizes hidden in one of the outdoor geocaches.

Coco shows us her little prizes!

This was in the indoor maze, when Chase and Daddy were using clues from a map to find a hidden access code for the cache. Cool!

Avery and Coco were stamping their Adventure Cards, showing which geocaches they had found in the indoor maze.

Chase stamping his Adventure Card.

Everyone was happy about this experience--even Trey, who was as pleased as punch just to tag along. And, afterwards, we went to a little gourmet cupcake shop and everyone chose a cupcake to take home for a treat. (Mine was Salted Caramel--seriously, you MUST try this trendy new flavor! Worth every calorie!) Yum!

But, the best news is that the birthday celebrations were not over! We made Avery's favorite meal for dinner on Sunday. This 10-year-old is no Hot Dogs and Macaroni kid! His request was for Teriyaki Flank Steak with Golden Ranch Potatoes and Steamed Broccoli. We've taught him well, don't you think? We saved the really good junk food for his actual birthday. Because it was on a Monday, we started the day with chores and school work and going to the library. The boys also had their last fencing class in the evening, so in between we did a lot of playing and had a little pizza party at home (delivered to us by Pizza Hut . . . a rare treat around here!). Then, after fencing class, we came home for cake and ice cream and more time with Daddy.

Below I will share more pictures from this super fun birthday celebrating our Avery!

The Birthday Boy making funny faces!

Opening gifts.

Reading the birthday card from Nana with little sister.

Again, we have on display Avery's sophisticated food preferences. This is no ordinary birthday cake! This is a triple layer cherry red velvet cake with homemade cream cheese frosting. And, man, did it take the cake! SO yummy! When I was his age, I don't think I even knew that there was any other option besides chocolate cake. Delicious!