Lizzie's Birthday Party...

This year we decided to do Lizzie's birthday Party the week after her birthday, since her birthday is always falls on Memorial Day weekend and quite a few of our friends leave town then. In retrospect we should have done it the week before... note to self for next year. Apparently a whole week waiting for a party is complete torture for a six year old! We had the party at our new favorite park on Sunday afternoon complete with a bounce house with a slide, which everyone loved, snacks, drinks, the park, presents and of course cake. I'm so thankful the weather cooperated. It had been raining for most of the week, so it was cold and windy, but at least no rain. It did start to sprinkle right after everyone left though! :)

 Lizzie and her best friend Samantha

 Thank you, thank you daddy!

 Scott and Ben acting their age! :)

 The beach cake

 Poor Abby, no nap and now in a cake induced stupor.

 Present time! 

Such a haul that girl received! I've never seen her so excited in all my life and it was absolutely crazy some of the things people bought her. Thank you everybody! You made it possible for my liitle girl to have the "best birthday EVER"!

Lizzie's Birthday - Monday...

Here's more of Lizzie Birthday weekend extravaganza! Sunday was spent at church, swimming in our community pool, and then with friends at life group that evening. Then on Monday, since it was Memorial Day and Ben didn't have to work and no school for Lizzie, we headed to the beach, as requested by the birthday girl! We went to our favorite spot, Seaward Beach in Ventura, played in the sand and sunshine for hours, I talked with a really hot lifeguard for a while, and then had dinner at our favorite fish and chip spot. The perfect way to end a great weekend celebrating one of our most favorite persons!

 Ben going to do what he loves most...

 It was the very first time Lizzie got in the water all by herself. Normally she's pretty timid with the ocean, but not this time!

I even remembered to give the camera over to Ben this time... yay proof that I was really there!

Lizzie's Birthday - Saturday...

 Since we were out an about all day on her actually birthday day the next day, Saturday, we had a good friend's birthday party to go to and then Lizzie had her birthday dinner that night... pancakes and sausage of course!

 Happy face!

Happy Birthday Lizzie, we love you!!!

Lizzie's Birthday Day - part 3...

After exploring the abandoned zoo we went back down the stairs to play at Shane's Playground, as promised earlier while we were having our picnic lunch. The girls ran around like crazy and played until almost dark.

And then at dusk we went up to the Griffith Observatory. It was beautiful way up there on top of the hill. I didn't want to leave.

The girls had fun, but at this point they were getting a little sleepy. The most amazing part of the observatory was being able to look through their giant telescope and see Saturn and its rings with your own eyes. It was so neat to see the real thing instead of just a photograph. That place brought back tons of memories of my grandfather and his little observatory he built on top of his roof at their old place. So many fond memories of being invited up there and listening to his stories as he showed us the stars. I miss you Grandpa!

Lizzie's Birthday Day - part 2...

After our picnic lunch we headed up the stairs to go explore the old abandoned L.A. Zoo. There's quite a bit of it still there from the 1930's and even after all of these years it still smelled of zoo animals. There were so many nooks and crannies to explore I think it was unanimously our favorite part of the day... I definitely see a return visit in our future!

The spaces for the bears and elephants (really everything) were super tiny.

Going up the back walkways in between the cages. There was graffiti everywhere, but it was actually surprisingly clean.

Lizzie's Birthday Day...

These are the day's events of how the birthday girl wanted to spend her day!

It all started here!

Then went IMMEDIATELY to this followed by hours of playing!

After playing and packing a few things for our adventure we headed on down to Griffith Park. First stop, the pony rides! She had been talking all week about how this was the ONLY thing she wanted to do for her birthday.

Lucky for Abby she has a sister that likes ponies.

They loved it. The horses actually trotted, which they thought was so awesome, awesome enough to do it three whole times and each time was twice around a pretty good sized track.

After the pony rides right next door is the little old steam train, so we went on a little trip around part of the park.

Then it was lunch time, nothing beats a picnic outside in the sunshine... even if there are wild coyotes around.