Mark's Birthday

Mark is a New Years baby and we start celebrating him on New Year's Eve. This year, the kids made gluten free cupcakes (Mark found out just before Christmas that he, like his sister, has Celiac Disease and cannot eat gluten- but that's a whole other blog post) with grandma and Aunt Sarah.  We sang Happy Birthday to him (notice Will plugging his ears) at Doug's house before we took the kids back home to the babysitter.

We rang in the New Year and Mark's official birthday celebrating at the base of Crystal Mountain. I don't have any pictures of the Torch Light Parade because it looks the same each year.  A line of 60ish people snaking their way down the hill on skis or snowboards, while carrying road flares and Mark leads the way because he's the birthday boy and well, he's been leading the way for a long time.

It was very windy and freezing cold (notice the awesome outfits, it was all about dressing to stay warm). There was some concern that they wouldn't be able to light off the fireworks because of the wind.  But the show still went on.




In the morning, Will and Erin were excited to give their daddy the presents they picked out for him. Erin gave him a football because he didn't have one (and she was right). Will picked out a Spiderman shaving kit.  He saw it a Meijer and really wanted to get it for daddy because daddy shaves and Will likes Spiderman.

We met the Schafflers and G &G (they were dropping U. Matt and A. Kristin off at the airport) at a bar in Traverse City for lunch. We had a nice lunch and then our family drove around the East Bay to check out the Bayshore 10k course (we are doing the race Memorial Day weekend). It was a cold, snowy and windy day, but it was really peaceful to be driving around looking at the beautiful houses. 

Mark and I left the kids home with G & G and walked to the Kinlochen for a date night. I think it might have been the first one we'd had since our anniversary in July. We get out, but with other people. It was a delicious dinner and nice to not wrestle any kids while trying to eat and maybe talk to each other.

This is what we came home too. LOL! They were wound up and having a dance party. They were supposed to be going to bed but somehow, this happened.  I love random moments like this!