Derek's Happy Birthday

After our anniversary trip, but before our anniversary, was Derek's birthday.  Cinco de Mayo.  My brother Ray and his wife Lori stopped by on their way back from St. George and so they joined in the evening birthday festivities -- which really just consisted of dinner, dessert, and presents.  Here are the pictures.

Derek's favorite:  being surrounded by family -- especially his kids.

Ray and Lori (I have a knack for blurry pictures)

Guess how old he is :-)

A little dorky of my Derek, but Tia worked so hard on his "wrapping paper"!

I like that Jake is helping Derek blow out his two candles.

Just for the record, dinner was french bread pizzas (Mmmmm) and salad (so we could pretend to like healthy food).  Dessert was ginger cookies and homemade peach ice cream.  I had a particularly fun time wrapping Derek's presents in newspaper and plastic bags in an imitation of his style of wrapping. Derek is good at helping us all be happy, and we enjoyed celebrating his happy birthday with him.

Anniversary Trip

As of yesterday (May 11th) Derek and I have been married for 27 years.  We celebrated early this year by having an adventure in Southern Utah.  We hiked at Red Cliffs on the way to St. George, and went that night with my sister Jenny and my brother-in-law Jeff to the beautiful Tuacahn theater to laugh really hard at Brian Regan.  That was April 30th, and Brian Regan is a comedian and so he liked it that we were laughing.

Friday we went with my parents to visit my Aunt Vanda and Uncle Carl.  We got a tour of their beautiful home and yard and had a good visit with them, and then went to lunch.  My Dad loves the lunch deal at Dairy Queen and so we went there.  Free dessert!  I  would have enjoyed my ice cream better if they hadn't kept the restaurant at Arctic temperatures.  On the way back to my parent's house, Dad drove us to see their favorite golf course.  They don't golf, but they like the view!

St. George was hosting the Iron Man race that weekend, and so Friday night Derek's brother Quinn drove his wife, and us to Mesquite to eat at a buffet at a casino.  The food was really good, and the restaurant didn't smell nearly as bad as the casino itself.  The company was great.

Saturday we went to Cedar City and picked up Tia's stuff for her move back to the Provo area.  YAY!  It was a great weekend.  The only problem with it is that it wasn't a little longer.  Happy Anniversary to us!