Mimi's 90th Birthday Celebration

On July 9th, Mimi's church had a triple birthday celebration for three of their members who turn 90 this summer. Mimi is one of them! Mimi's actual birthday isn't until the end of August, but the other two honorees had their birthdays earlier in the summer.

We kicked off the day with a little pre-party reading entertainment.

And Mimi and Wesley watched some video footage from our California trip on the iPhone.

Here is the camera crew gearing up for the event.

First, there was some congregational singing. Each honoree got to pick three of their favorite hymns. It was a little tough to keep two little boys content during every verse of nine songs! Then we got around to eating barbeque that was smoked by one of the members. It was pretty tight quarters, so there was a lot of socializing to be done before we all got through the line. It was worth the wait!

Wesley entertained himself with Mimi's "Birthday Girl" balloon which she happily handed over to him.

Wesley was proud to write his own name in Mimi's HUGE card

Then came time for cake and ice cream. Each birthday boy/girl got to pick their own flavor of cake. Mimi chose Italian cream. The other two were chocolate and carrot cake. Members also supplied various flavors of yummy homemade ice cream.

Wesley chose carrot cake

The happy birthday girl

Wesley and Curtis had some fun little playmates

Once the festivities were over, Mimi took all of her goodies to the couch and thoroughly enjoyed looking through each and every card and gift. She looked especially cute (and happy) reading all of the notes on her humongous card that everyone signed. There were lots of chuckles, and then she concluded her time, with "Well, that was very heart-warming!" And then she invited me to read through all of them myself. I obliged. :)

Here is Curtis enjoying his latest book installment from Misha and Gin-Gin when we returned home. He is learning new words all the time!

The Chinese Outfit

This post is for my sister. I barely squeezed Curtis into the cute little Chinese outfit (she had originally gotten for Wesley) before it was too late. Wesley had his own photo shoot by Lela when we were visiting Austin in 2008. He was 15 months (above). Here is Lela's post with pictures. Here, Curtis is 19 months.

California

At the end of June we got to take a trip to California to see Colin and Lela. We flew (which went pretty well) and my parents drove. My parents were kind enough to sponsor the whole trip, and it was really nice. The four of us stayed with Lela in their one bedroom apartment (they slept on a mattress in the living room while we took over the bedroom), and my parents stayed in a little hotel just up the street. We got to go to Long Beach Aquarium, Huntington Beach, and Downtown Disney. We didn't think Curtis was old enough to justify the cost of going to actual Disneyland. We'll go when they're old enough to appreciate the experience. Also, Curtis was sick toward the end of the trip, so there was a lot of hanging around the apartment to let him get some good napping in. We also ate a lot of Korean food since my sister and her husband live in a mostly Korean area. John Mark liked it, but I was more than happy to patronize places like Five Guys (my first time) and Rainforest Cafe.

Long Beach Aquarium

Wesley touching the stingrays

Not sure about meeting this Stingray...

but Wesley decided he could trust it enough to turn his back to it for a picture.

Huntington Beach

Wesley wasn't so sure about the water, but he was a huge fan of playing in the sand. He even got buried in it! Curtis, on the other hand, was more than ready to be set free in the ocean and take it on alone. It was pretty tough to hold onto his hands when the waves came! I had a death grip on that little guy.

Reading a book with Misha back at the apartment.

Curtis was still feeling pretty good at this point. :)

Lela and Colin got some fun video footage of the trip that is posted on her blog. If you watch it, notice how Curtis cautiously approaches the ocean from about 20 feet away in the second video. It's pretty hilarious.

Here is one last picture of Wesley with Lego Woody at Downtown Disney. The Lego Darth Vader scared him (it made deep breathing noises), but he perked up quite a bit upon seeing good ol' Woody in the corner.

June

June was a fun month for our family! Our local library had a petting zoo day for kids to try to get them involved in the summer reading program. The poor hot animals were very cooperative and tolerant of crazy kids running around messing with them.

One hot afternoon we turned on the sprinklers and filled up the little inflatable pool to cool off. We invited some friends over to enjoy it. They were more interested in other toys, like the tricycle. The last picture shows Wesley helping little Caroline get up the huge hill (ha) in our front yard.

.c

We also got to go to California to see my sister, Lela and her husband, Colin! Should be a post on that coming up soon.