I love birthdays with my family...

I love birthdays with my family. They are always so wonderful. I feel like royalty for the day! For my 35th (plenty-fifth rather) birthday Jewel had a lovely relaxing day for mom all set up for me. Candles, a nice hot bath drawn, classical violin music, cup of hot cocoa, breakfast of sunny side up eggs, sausage & peanut butter crackers (we were out of bread) decorated with a sprig of mint while relaxing in the bath and homemade presents to boot! Jewel wanted me to feel very special. Later found in the (fortunately clean) trash bin all crumpled up, her detailed plans - literally. She had everything mapped out, detailed notes on how everything should be prepared and how she wanted me to feel. I had to pull them out and unwrinkle the paper - that's scrapbook material right there! Ken had saved up his tips from delivering pizza to take us all out to our favorite sushi restaurant, which was wonderful!

Jewel's Birthday Campout!

Jewel had her 13th Birthday on September 7th! Can you believe it? Our Jewel is 13! Well, this years birthday wish was a fun one. Jewel wanted to go camping with some close friends overnight. It was a lot of fun and thankfully there were no microburst storms this time! What made it even better is that we had the entire area all to ourselves! Just one of the perks of homeschooling and having a birthday the night of the first day of the traditional school year!


Jewel Receiving those special calls from long distance relatives that she misses so much!!


Mmmmm.... Pork ribs marinating in a homemade sauce!


Our new tent courtesty of the storm from our last campout!


Our campsite! It's huge! And check out the waterfront view too!






Ken cooking (his favorite part of the campout I think) dinner and breakfast!






Setting the table for breakfast!


Campfire Stories


Canoeing






We brought our (Jewel's) little dog Patch with us. He was loved and loved every minute of being adored, and fed those tasty rib bones after we had consumed all that we could consume! After Patch could no longer eat anymore ribs, he buried the remaining bones, of course being the little hoarder he is. Unfortunately upon waking in the morning and searching for his bones, Patch found that his bones were all gone. The local wildlife had dug them all up in the evening and taken them away. It was a pitiful sight to see.








Patchy - All tired out after a vigilant night of protecting his people from those noisy woodland critters & being the wonderful poseable puppy.