B-Day Wrap Up

In an effort to wrap-up all things birthday 2010 we present you with the following photo dump:

On the actual date of Desmond's birthday we had a party at our house. It was the middle of the week, and we planned to have it right around dinner time. I guess that we underestimated just how busy everyone is around that time of day...everyone we invited was late. There were some anxious moments as we were waiting for everyone where we contemplated eating all of the cake by ourselves...there was a lot of cake.

Eventually all of the guests made it to the party, and then we were overrun by kids. Again, it was Wednesday night, at the time most folks are trying to relax, so most of the kids (and parents) were beginning to get tired and some of them were even a little bit moody. So keep this in mind when you plan a party for kids. If there are no other options you had best have a pinata for them to take out any aggressive tendencies on.

They make these things out of some industrial-strength cardboard now-a-days. Even the best efforts of some of the bigger kids could not break the stupid thing. In the interest of getting to the cake, we took it upon ourselves to bend the rules of the game.

Some of us couldn't wait for cake.

It was fun, at least I think that it was. D and E seemed to have a good time, and that's all that is important to us.

The reason that we had a mid-week birthday party is because we were planning the first McDonald-Kid-Birthday Ski Trip. We hope to make a trip to the mountains for skiing a tradition in our house for Emma and Desmond's birthdays. We left town the day after the party reported above. Yeah, so it was a pretty big effort to get ready for the party, and then get ready and set off on our adventure within a couple days. Jennifer did most of the work. It was worth it because we all had fun.

We went to Leadville, CO. It's nearby Ski Cooper which is a relatively small ski resort(?). I'm not even sure it is considered a resort. There are none of the condos or hotels at the mountain. Really it's just a place to go skiing. A small place when compared to the nearby resorts. And affordable...Desmond took a morning lesson, and the cost for the lesson, rentals and lift pass was very reasonable.

So we left the afternoon on the day following the party. We drove to our designated half way point and stayed in a hotel. The next morning we pushed through into the mountains and to Leadville. We rented a little house there.

Our days went pretty much as planned. We got there on Friday, about mid day. We got settled and relaxed for a bit before we went to look for the tubing hill. Unfortunately we missed the fact that the tube rental shack is only open on the weekends. We had to improvise. We went to a nearby Alco, yes Alco, hoping to buy some sleds. They were sold out...we were very disappointed with Alco for this. It was close enough to Spring that they were starting to stock swimming toys...floaties. We bought a couple of the larger swimming floaties and headed back to the tubing hill to give it a try. We figured that if they didn't work we could always come back the following day and rent proper tubes. They worked...well enough.

Desmond was the man on the tubing hill. Although he couldn't walk up it without help, he was the master of the descent. He was small enough that he fit well on the floatie, and he would just lay back, completely, and fly down the hill totally out of control but having a wonderful time. Emma would ride with Pops. A couple of times we almost collided with D...Pops had to put the brakes on and snow would fly everywhere which Emma loved. Though she did get cold and wet quickly, so we watched the last couple of Desmond's runs from the warmth of the car.

After tubing we went home for some dinner and to warm up. I think that there may have even been some napping. But that evening we went ice skating. The rink was outdoors, and it had been snowing all day, so the ice was covered with about six inches of snow. Really though, this was OK with us. It made walking on the ice easier, and was a little more forgiving in a fall than the ice. They gave these little chairs to the kids. They could push them around for balance. It worked good.

By this time D was getting tired. He would push his chair across the rink and then just lay down in the snow and rest for a while. He would eventually get up and do it some more. Eventually though both kids were so tired that all they wanted to do was sit in the chairs and be pushed around by Mom and Pop.

Eventually D just wanted to sit and watch the kids playing hockey. Everyone was tired.

But the next day was skiing! After a big breakfast we made our way to the slope where Desmond and Pops got outfitted.

Desmond did well...from what we could see. We made an effort to just abandon him at the lesson so that he didn't have any other real options other than to just participate and try. Which he did. His instructor said he did well.

Mostly all they did was learn about the gear and how to use the skis and boots. They also learned how to get up, stop and, well, fall. They took break, had some hot chocolate, and mostly just enjoyed skiing...what exactly what we had hoped they would do. It's supposed to be fun right?

Pops went snowboarding, Emma and Mom hung out in the lodge and did a little shopping. After D's lesson was over we decided to check in our gear and have lunch...we decided not to push it by trying to make any extra trips up and down the mountain.

That afternoon we went to a pottery studio where the kids got to paint some ceramic items: Emma a heart-shaped box and Desmond a snake. The studio fired them and then shipped them to us...they turned out good.

We also made a point to visit the highest airport in North America.

I think that was mostly entertaining to Pops, but anyone else interested in this sort of thing can probably recognize how big of a deal taking off at almost 10000 feet really is.

(Windsock in background)

And we could not let the day, Emma's Birthday!, go by without at least a little celebration. We had thought about going out for dinner, or getting a cake, or...something. In the end we decided to stay in and rest...we were all very tired. Pops made some cookies, and made a special big cookie for Emma. She seemed to enjoy it...we hope so.

Happy Birthday Diamond D and Mike Wazowski.