Zac and Lori and a Birthday Story

Another birthday came and went and I have the gray hairs to show for it.  Our ages both now round up to 40 and we are starting to feel middle aged.  This year our birthdays actually fell on Memorial Day, which was fun because growing up my birthday was always on Memorial Day until congress or whoever decided that it should always land on a Monday to give us all a better vacation... I'm not complaining.  Growing up we always camped on my birthday.  However, ever since I married Zac I have discovered the magic of cabin camping and it is a little hard to go back, especially with 6 small children... so to the cabin we went!

Before Zac's actual birthday I made him THIS amazing birthday dinner, something he has been requesting for a long time... a pizza volcano.  He said that he ate these on his mission, but I am having my doubts because I couldn't find any sort of recipe anywhere for this concoction, so I had to get creative and make up how to do it myself.  It turned out so cool!

The kids thought birthday at the cabin was a great idea.  They may have given him a few selfish gifts, such as a fish weighing scale, a fish bite alert, and a fillet knife...

Each kid had a gift for dad and they played a rousing game of heavy, heavy hangover thy poor head, which is always hilarious with the kids.

They also worked hard to save their money to buy their mom a crock pot because I accidentally broke my old one pretty bad.  It was a very sweet and thoughtful gift.

Tanner and Ian along with Uncle Tyler and his boys, dragged Zac out of bed at 5:30 a.m. on his birthday to fish.  They fished for 7 hours and had this one fish to show for it... so worth it to Tanner.  He is a boy obsessed with fishing.

Meanwhile the girls all made good use of the kayaks with their cousins... even though it was a frigidly cold day.

These pictures are a result of me trying to explain the concept of Aperture to my sister in law.  But I thought the pictures really captured the beauty of our forest surroundings, so I am throwing them in here.

The girls decided to make some beauty of their own and gathered up materials from nature to make this lovely Mandala.  They were busy for hours making this!

I am finding more and more that as an adult when the kids are happy, then I am happy, and I know that Zac feels the same.  So even though on our actual birthday he got up at 5:30 a.m. and spent 7 hours catching one fish and I spent all day packing and cleaning while the kids played on the lake, we still had a wonderful birthday because the kids were so happy.

Later that night, we got the kids to bed early snuggled in together with some snacks, put a movie on the projector and had a wonderful night together... the most magical part of my birthday.

Happy Birthday Zac.  Thank you for sharing your life and birthday with me.