Celebrating David's Birthday 2014

Over the weekend we celebrated David's 41st birthday.  We generally make a big deal out of birthday's around our house.  It's fun to honor that person for the day.  Here is how we celebrated David this year.

His actual birthday was Saturday, Aug. 2 but we began celebrating with supper on Friday night.  We cooked on the grill and enjoyed a festive supper around the table.  We took turns telling David what we love about him.  Cruz said things like "he pushes me in the swing", "he helps me ride my bike", "he lays down with me at naptime".  Every time we asked Ben all he would say was "Jesus".  We got a lot of laughs out of that. 

birthday eve supper

I used the same banner and table decoration that I bought for Ben's 2nd birthday in the States.  I will start using it for all of our birthday celebrations.

birthday breakfast

I served his breakfast on our Celebration Plate.  We use it for every special occasion in our family.

his birthday cake

As you can tell it split down the middle.  Oh well.  It still tasted the same. ha   I let Cruz help me bake it and decorate it.  For his candles I used the #1 candle from the boys first birthday and the #4 candle from Cruz's fourth birthday.  I love that sentimental touch!  We ate it for our morning snack.

Happy Birthday, David!

After he blew out the candles we re-lit them and let the boys have a turn blowing them out.

I took pictures of David and the boys

Mid-morning we left and drove to Esquipulas, Guatemala to have a little family fun.  Our first stop was at Pollo Campero for lunch.  Afterwards we visited Parque Chatun.  It was our first time to visit there and the main reason was to do the zipline. 

It was a fun place to spend the day and I feel certain we'll go back.

David and the boys after we entered the park.

They had paddle boats (you can see in the background) but we didn't do them.  Maybe next time.

The boys loved watching the ducks swim around.

The large swinging bridge that takes you to the main park area.

The creek that runs under the bridge.  I thought the view was pretty.

There was already a group doing the zipline when we arrived so we had to wait about an hour for the next turn.  We passed the time by letting the boys play on the playground.  They have a nice play area for younger children.  My boys loved it!

Our family at Parque Chatun celebrating David's birthday.

Like all days around here it was HOT.  We cooled off with some ice cream.

The boys enjoyed visiting the horses.  They offer rides but the minimum age is 7.  That made Cruz sad.

Finally it was time for the zipline.  Cruz has been asking for a while now to do one.  We told him when we got back to Guatemala we would find one for him.  Several places around the country offer them.  It's very common here.  He was over the moon excited when we told him what was about to happen! We thought it would be fun to have that memory on David's birthday.  Ben was too small so only David and Cruz went.  Ben and I passed the time back on the playground.

getting their gear on

all smiles!

and off they go!

I sent David with my camera but I got no photos.   Bummer!   They had a blast.

Afterwards we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and going down the waterslides.  What a fun way to spend a hot afternoon.

Ben was a HUGE fan of the slides!  I think he's going to be more fearless than Cruz. (yikes)

love those smiles!

David and the boys on his birthday

And here's a photo of David and the boys on his birthday back in August 2012.  Look how small the boys were! 

This picture of our sweet little Ben pretty much sums up our day.  What a fun time we had!  We made a lot of memories.  We shared a lot of laughs.  And the best part of all was that our boys were both in bed asleep by 8:00 and slept until 7:00 the next morning.   That's a gift any tired parent can appreciate, right?