Birthdays, Doctors, and Business Trips

We had a fun weekend...dragging out the birthday celebrations for 3 days. Saturday night, we headed to Red Robin. This is our birthday tradition and since I went with my family this year Jon didn't get to go. It was also way too hot to even think about cooking and we had a coupon, so off we went. It was delicious, as always.

Emma has been wanting to ride the train for a long time so she and Jon rode the train home from dinner. You can't tell, but she was so excited. She just gets really shy when she's excited or anticipating something.

I found this scooter at a yard sale for $5 and the helmet for $3. I was hoping to save them for Christmas but Emma saw them before I could hide them. She loves that scooter and gets around really well.

Sunday night we had my birthday party. Jon put together a treasure hunt for me to find my gifts. He based his gifts around the 4 greatest gifts- family, faith, home, and love and had really thoughtful gifts and notes with each one. (He had a lot of time to plan since the kids and I were gone...I may just go out of town right before my birthday every year!)

This picture frame was the family gift. Faith was a jar of olive oil, home was a cd that he put together of our favorite songs, and love was a beautiful heart necklace.

We made a brownie cheesecake that kind of flopped, but at least it looked good. And Matthew even sang along to Happy birthday. It's so cute. He can sing along to the first line of the song and then he waits for the end and blows the candles.

Monday, my actual birthday, Jon surprised me and took the day off of work. Both kids had their doctor appointments, so it was nice to have another adult there...especially when it came time for shots. Poor Matthew had to get 6 shots...2 in each leg and 1 in each arm. Emma didn't need any but she really wanted one. She threw a fit and kept asking all the nurses if they could give her a shot. She really likes shots and has been looking forward to getting one since she found out she was going to the doctor. Pretty weird. It's too bad Matthew couldn't have shared some of his. He was a sad little guy. We finally got Emma out of the doctor's office by offering to let her ride the train home. So, she and Jon went for the second train ride of the weekend. Good times!

Emma- 3 years 2 months
36 1/2" 30 lb 6 oz

Matthew- 15 months
28 1/2" 18 lb 6 oz

Monday afternoon we went bowling since we still have our free bowling passes and then just enjoyed hanging out.

Tuesday was a fun day for everyone. I found a company who was looking for kids to try out an educational games website. They paid us $75 to come to our house, watch Emma play some games, and get our opinions on it. Not a bad deal. If anyone's interested the website is zoodles.com. They combine a bunch of online educational games so your kid doesn't go from website to website. Your child has a "toybox" with games geared towards their age, interests, etc. Pretty neat idea.

While we were doing that, Jon was on his first business trip. He left at 5 am to fly to LA with his department. They went to the studio down there, got a tour, and had some meetings. Then they flew back home. A short trip, which we were both grateful for.

They got to ride in this limo from the airport to the studio.
The inside of the limo...pretty fancy stuff.

The grounds of the studio...isn't it so pretty?

Here you can see the fires that are in LA. Jon said ash was raining down on them.