Owen is 6!

Today is Owen's Happy Birthday! He's been counting down and is finally six years old and will be able to go to first grade!

It's been a good day. Nancy and I went on a bike ride again this morning at Quinn's Trail. After looking at the map again and knowing a little better where I am, I am pretty sure we went up Fast Pitch to Matt's Flat, then took a right on Sevently 101 to Porcuclimb, then to Nowhere Elks, then down the Rusty Shovel trial again, to Rambler then back to the car. It's a nice loop. It was a beautiful cool over cast morning today. It felt and smelled lovely. Back at the room, the kids went swimming.

I watched them for a bit, then came inside and got lunch and dessert ready. Dessert was Owen's birthday cake and ice cream. They came in, ate lunch, then we went over to Corey's parent's room to sing to Owen on his big day!! Unfortunately we didn't have any matches to light the candle on his cake. After our bike ride this morning, we went by the store and I got a candle, cause I had left them at home. But I didn't think about matches or a lighter. It's ok - we'll get another picture next week when we're back home and my mom comes over. 

I tore off two small pieces of paper towel and set them on top of the candle and told O to blow that off, which he did. Corey's mom brought balloons and little party blowers. We sang to Hyrum too, since he will have a birthday soon but will be gone in Philadelphia again. Owen didn't want to share the birthday spotlight though.

Then he said "Fine!" and moved for a quick song. I did a stellar job of last second wrapping as we were loading the car on Sunday, and Owen's gifts from us were in a black garbage sack - four sets of Legos - three small Star Wars sets and a Ninjago set that looked like it had guys Owen would like. 

Owen opened presents while the teenage girls served up dessert. Abi sliced up the cake and Alix dished up the ice cream. Daniel really loved the blowout thing. 

Everyone enjoying an early dessert.

After that, my kids all headed to our room to help Owen make his lego sets. I had a few hours to sit and work at the computer while the kids played with Owen's new toys. 

Hyrum put Peter down for a nap. I went to check on him at 4:00 before we did a game of Hotel tag. He looks so relaxed.

There was some meeting happening on the 3rd floor, and some of the kids couldn't control their yelling when they were scared of being tagged, so I don't know if we'll play that again. My apologies to the Marriott staff. After dinner, I helped clean up and Corey took a phone call and the kids scattered. Corey had wanted to take them on a ride, but since they were all gone, I suggested Corey and I could do a ride together and also for some stupid reason I suggested we go up to Guardsman. It was getting too late though, but Corey didn't acknowledge my comments trying to rescind my Guardsman suggestion. So Corey's dad came along and dropped us off and then took Corey's car back to the hotel, and Corey and I had a late night adventure in the mountain. We were just starting at 7:46, which is way too late, but we huffed and puffed it up the trail that we assumed was Scott's Bypass, but now that we are back and able to look at a map, we have been able to see the folly of our ways. We must have missed the green trail of Scott's Bypass, and instead we went up to freaking Jupiter Bowl (black) and over the ridge toward Jupiter Peak (also black). Here we are along the rocky ridge between the peaks. It's a really pretty view though!

We couldn't find where we wanted to go, so took the best guess of what looked like a biking trail and we now know that we did DEAD TREE, a trail along a double black diamond skiing mountain. Which might help explain why I was almost paralyzed with fear and walked my bike along that whole trail. Holy smokes, it was terrifying.

Like, there was no time to enjoy the view, cause if I took my eyes off that narrow trail, I was sure I would tip to my left and end up going head over wheels all the way down the mountain. I was glad when we were off of that. When we got to Apex, that was fun. But I was pretty stressed out and trying to calm my tense muscles. It was 8:30 and we were loosing light fast. We eventually found some road, which on the ski maps is at conjunction of Parley's Park with Sunnyside, Dynamite, and Prospector, so we took a left on the dirt road to there over to Thayne's Mine, then north from the mine, along dirt road down Thayne's Canyon. We ended at King Con ski lift and it wasn't quite a life and death situation, but we didn't want to get attacked by moose (saw two of them) or have mountain lions find us, so we disobeyed the signs and went under some gates (3 times) onto private property (Private Evacuation Route on this map, next to Armstrong) and ended up Snows Lane at 9:15. Then 1 mile from Snows Lane back up to the Marriott on Lowell Avenue, so we were back at the hotel at 9:24 pm, and that was our foolish beginner bikers adventure. Good news is that we didn't die or get stuck on the mountain overnight, yay. And now that we know the main problem was that we missed Scott's Bypass, we're going to have to go try it again! But it was fun, and it'll be more fun next time when we do it right, so it's all good. Lily was on Peter duty while we were gone and they bonded big time, which Lily loved because usually he scorns her.

One last note - Corey has been working up here this year, unlike last year. That was fun last year that he was really "here" with us, but he can't do that this year because he found out when we were in Lake Tahoe that his contract would be ending at the end of July, so he only has a few more days to make some money. As far as I know, he has not found another project, so we're praying for that and asking the Lord to guide him in the next thing he does for work, and will do our best to trust in Him if the answer to that prayer is slow in coming. Things will work out.