A Trip to the Farm

It was our cousin Matt Saunders' farewell on February 26th. We did the short drive to Vale and visited with the family! Unfortunately I wasn't much fun since I had a terrible cold/sinus infection. My nose never stopped running, I looked like Rudolph by the end of the trip. It was still wonderful though!

Mark, Caleb, and Uncle Don

Uncle Don gives good rides:)

Cooking in the kitchen

Waiting for the food....

Michael playing the grand piano!

Birthday in Hawaii

So, it was Michael's birthday on February 26th. Earlier in January I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. He jokingly said "a trip to Hawaii". I was like "ok!". I started planning and decided I would turn our apartment into Hawaii for his birthday. I made a bunch of plans for decoration and activities by the middle of January. However, I didn't start preparing until 2 days before the party so I had to cut out a few things, like the little pool and sandbox :) With the amazing help of Aunt Dena, Mom, and DeNae we got all the decorations done by 10 o'clock the night before. The next day Mom came over and helped me clean my house and set up all the decorations. We all thought it turned out pretty amazing.

View from the front door:

Palm trees are the brain child of Aunt Dena- they are made of poster board that is rolled up and glued/stapled/taped together. Then you glue/wrap crepe paper around the tube. You can use brown, but we used black and then spray painted the whole trunk brown. The leaves are made out of butcher paper and painted green. The have wire hangers on the end to hold them up- She is a genius!!

Our festive couch. Flowers were painted on poster board as well. 

Michael and I got boogie boards last summer when we went to the Oregon Coast, we love having them up with the decorations. Thanks to DeNae for doing the big, beautiful, purple flower. 

I wanted the hammock to look like it was hung up between two trees so we made the hammock stand into palm trees:)

Our appetizers before dinner

This grill was Michael's birthday present- he loves BBQ. Thanks to Gramma and Pap for giving it to us:)

Making delicious steak kabobs- Whit helped me marinate the meat and it was amazing!

Our feast:)

Mmmmmm good!!

Michael loves Brownies and strawberry milkshakes so that's what we had for dessert. It was a wonderful trip in Hawaii! So great that we still haven't taken the decorations down.