Happy Birthdaversary!

This is a big week in our house. We celebrated Mark's birthday yesterday and our anniversary is tomorrow! So, this last weekend we did a combined birthdaversary trip to Las Vegas! Mark had a conference there (which is always so handy for tagging on personal trips to!), so I met him there on Thursday afternoon for a weekend-long date. That really is what it felt like---a relaxing date night with my hubby that lasted 72 hours!

We went to eat and visited the casino on the "Vegas strip" the first night I arrived, and then promptly headed away from the busy lights of Vegas, to the lakefront resort at the Ritz Carlton. (Let me just say that if you want good rates at a Ritz, go in the hottest season to Las Vegas...the rooms are at least half-price and the place is deserted!!) It was exactly what we were hoping for. Beautiful, quiet, relaxing...not at all what I usually think of Vegas as being.

I can't say we got good pictures of the place, but here are two that I snapped at some point. We spent all three days just being lazy...swimming and laying by the pool, eating lots of good meals (the usual theme of our vacations!), and just recharging after a busy summer. I even had an EIGHTY minute pedicure. Wow, that was nice! Mark said at one point "You haven't been this relaxed in a very long time". And, I really did agree. It's been a busy few months, and I do feel like I've been more of a stressball than a relaxed mom and wife on many days. So, it was a great getaway and a good celebration of our "birthdaversary", as we call it around here. :)

Of course, we had three different strangers take our picture together...and none of them turned out good at all. This is the best we got, and it's totally dark. It's actually beautiful behind us...but you can't tell! (Cass, can you help with your cool photoshop?!)

Yesterday, we did celebrate Mark's bday with the girls too. Breakfast in bed is the family tradition (although Kendyll informed us yesterday that we never let her stay in bed...she always has to come downstairs to eat on her birthday. She wasn't very happy about that. :) Anyway, here are the girls on top of their daddy in bed. They literally all piled on the bed to eat with him. Not exactly relaxing, but definitely what their daddy likes best. I love how "rough" this picture is of all four of them. I don't know if you can truly see the bedheads and the sleepy eyes, but this is what our family looks like for the first couple of hours of our days. And, I love it!

After Mark working all day, Abby Kate not napping well, and the girls and I needing more time to finish our birthday cake creation, we decided to take "Plan B" for his bday dinner. PF Chang's was the original plan...however, Pei Wei at home quickly became a better option. We didn't have to deal with a cranky 17 month old at a restaurant, we didn't have to tip a waiter, and we didn't have to get dressed! Plus, we took advantage of the occasion and had a family picnic in the living room, which made it much more memorable anyway! What other way to celebrate with daddy than with a Blockbuster night consisting of Hello Kitty and Strawberry Shortcake?!

Kendyll, Carlie, and I picked out a three-layer cake to make Mark this year. This was way ambitious for me, seeing that I've never made anything with layers and I usually just turn past those pages of the cookbook pretty quickly. :) But, it actually turned out pretty edible after all...especially with the girls being the ones in charge of the icing!

It was a fun day to celebrate Mark---he's always a fun one to have a party for. He eats it up and enjoys every minute. His big present from us was a fishing trip with a guide! He will schedule it for an upcoming weekend, and I'm SURE you'll see pictures of the fish he catches when he returns!!