Birthday Girl

Here I am, the birthday girl. A whoppin' 32 years old. It's a little surreal, since I remember my parents being 32, and they seemed a lot older than I feel right now. (Sorry Mom.)


My birthday cake had a slight accident and the heart cracked on the way home, so Chris tried to melt it back together. It worked a little too well, and he put his finger through it. So he did some surgery, and glued the whole thing back together with some melted chocolate chips.

Megan made me a sign and cut out all the letters herself. I thought she was very creative. Chris bought me some calla lilies, my favorite.



It took Chris and our friend Kevin lighting the candles with both hands, because there were SO MANY candles! And the chocolate was melting, so they had to work fast.

There wasn't much room on top of the cake for all the candles, so Chris put them around the side. He wanted to see just how talented I was. And I blew them all out the first try! The cake was soooooo rich and yummy. Even the kids said there was "too much chocolate," as if there is such a thing! It was a great day!

Redwoods

After a lot of rain over the last few weeks, I got a little stir crazy. And since it was my birthday, I got to choose where we went. We went to Big Basin Redwoods State Park yesterday. It was about an hour drive from home, winding through the mountains the whole way. Luckily Megan and I had our Dramamine before we left. We got there and found that a guided tour was about to start, so we joined in and learned a lot of interesting things about Redwood trees and the local history.

This was a giant tree that was damaged by fire. The trees don't catch fire easily due to the tannins in their bark, so they just char. The trees can still live hollowed out like this, as long as their nutrient layer isn't damaged.

Alisha liked walking along the fallen trees, since they were REALLY long!

This is the "Mother of the Forest," the tallest tree in Big Basin at 329 feet. It's not the tallest tree in California, that one is 40 feet higher! I think it's funny that the "Father of the Forest" isn't as tall, but it's thicker in the middle.

We found a whole swarm of ladybugs covering one of the wooden fence posts. I had never seen so many at once. It was pretty cool.

It was so beautiful and peaceful there. I think the girls' favorite part was when we stopped for ice cream at Frosty Freeze's on the way home. But it was a fun day.