Phoebe's 12th Birthday

Phoebe is 12! - 4/15/14

It was another pretty eventful last few days for Phoebe's birthday weekend. My baby girl turned 12 on April 15th 2014. Time sure does fly. I sure do love that girl. It really shows in the way her birthday plans were right in line with the type of stuff that I would enjoy doing. Friday night was taken up with 2 soccer games for Max, So we didn't really get to start until Saturday

Saturdays Activities:

We had a relaxed morning and I went for a trail run with Penny at Cliff Cave. I knew I would have plenty of time for that before the kids woke up. When I got back I tried to call around to schedule a horse trail ride for Phoebe, her friend, and myself. Everyone was booked up for Saturday, but I managed to get a 1PM slot for Sunday. That was our plan for today, so it opened up our entire day. I tried to "suggest" that we do the SLOC (St. Louis Orienteering Club) event at West Tyson, but I didn't get any takers. We ended up going on a hike with my mom at Bee Tree. I really enjoy walking there. We did a little shopping around after that. I have it in my mind that we need a puppy for Penny, so we stopped by to see the dogs up for adoption. There were some cuties, but we walked away without one. We had to get back home to get ready for a little family gathering at our house. We had Emily's parents, my parents, and my sister, Shelley's family over for taco night and cheesecake brownies instead of a cake (per Phoebe's request). My favorite part of the evening was playing a game the kids and I had made up. It's a combination of tag, jail break, capture the flag, and hide and seek. It's very hard to explain, but it was great to get all the kids out running around the house along with Shelley, Charles (brother-in-law), and myself. We played until everyone was worn out, even me! They were some well earned brownies! After everyone left, we settled down with some TV and playing on our electronics. Then Phoebe came up to me with an idea. A crazy, wonderful idea. She wanted to wake up early and watch the sunrise from the top of the cliff at Cliff Cave. I was sold and to my surprise, Max was too. He is normally one to sleep in. Awesome! With that decision, we were quick to bed so we could get up early.

Sunday's Activities:

This morning was much different than yesterday. I had my alarm set and we got up early. It seemed pretty bright out and I got Max, Phoebe, and Penny moving quickly so we could be on our way. We were actually cutting it pretty close. We could even see the colors of the sunrise in the sky on the way there. The clouds were also pretty thick, so I was concerned we wouldn't really see anything. We get within sight of Cliff Cave park entrance, and just as I feared the gates were closed. I pulled off and into the near by subdivision and we all got out and had to go for a morning jog. Now it's REALLY cutting it close. The kids ran pretty fast for so early in the morning. We made it to the cliff and hadn't missed it and it wasn't completely covered by clouds. It was nice to stay up there and just take it all in for a while. We eventually headed on our way back to the car and to get some breakfast. We went to Panera (St. Louis Bread Co.). It was delicious. We sat outside so Penny could join us and the temp was cooperating. We got back home and we had some time to relax before Phoebe and I had to head out for horseback riding at 1PM, so I took a quick opportunity to go for a quick mountain bike ride back at Cliff Cave. Oh no, the rain was coming. It had rained a decent amount and I got the call canceling our horseback ride. Phoebe's friend was already on her way over, so we had to come up with a backup plan quickly. Lots of ideas were tossed around and we settled on indoor rock climbing at Upper Limits. Thankfully Phoebe's friend was up for the change as well. We had a good time and the girls did great! My arms and fingers are easily the first to go and eventually I can no longer manage to hold on at all and that's when it's time to go. We stopped for some milk shakes and pre-dinner snack at Steak N Shake. That concluded our weekend with the kids. Phoebe had a birthday dinner to get to at Laury's parent's house.

Monday Night:

One last birthday dinner from us for Phoebe. We took her out to The Melting Pot. Everything was incredibly good. Between courses we were having fun making jokes, goofing off, and making videos on my phone. The notable highlights were the slow motion video of Emily, Phoebe's "don't you DARE touch my food" picture, and me getting caught by our waiter playing with the lobster tail shell. We also ended up with a second plate of deserts to dip in our chocolate! It was a 3 hour dinner, but time really flew by. On the way to the car I stepped on a sandwich on the sidewalk. I'm not sure i can quite explain how that turned into something so funny, but trust me that it was. It was a great birthday run. I hope that Phoebe had as much fun as I did!