Owen is 9! & Open House

Happy Birthday to Owen! Owen got kinda short changed for is birthday last year, though he didn't complain about it at all (it was the same day as JeNeal's funeral). Still, we tried to make sure this year was a good one for him, even though there was another event happening on his special day again. This boy is our early riser, so he was up at 6 am on a "you're free to sleep in" summer morning, as I knew he would be, so I had his stuff ready before he woke up. 

He didn't care to wait for his siblings to rise, cause that wouldn't be for another couple of hours, so it was just him and me, and that's ok. He's the birthday boy so he can call the shots today. 

He opened his gifts and played with his legos, and then Corey and I left to go on a ride with Joseph and his father in law Scott. We did Canyon Hollow and Brocks up, and then Rush down. 5.41 miles, 48 minutes. I got a PR for the end of Brocks, .23 in 2:24. Also a PR for Exist Stage left (which is what you can take instead of the trees) .36 miles, 1:31, previous PR was 1:36 on June 12 this year, so 5 seconds faster, oh yeah. We got back and cleaned up, then my mom came over at 10:30 with birthday gifts and cake for Owen. 

Happy Birthday to you!

His siblings were awake for his one. 

Checking out the loot.

Helping him put things together and play. 

Then Wayne came by to take Owen to the Natural History Museum as an outing together for his bday. 

I really like that Wayne does that. I think time together is a true gift, especially one on one time. With all the grandkids and birthdays that I see in our future, I assume that one on one time will be something that won't likely happen on it's own, so I plan to do something "one on one" like this for birthdays for our children as they leave our home and their children as they come. So yay, kids are busy and taken care of. Time to go set things up in the Morgan's yard... 

Mel and Abi were great help. We took a few car rides over with folding tables and big framed photos. We set up the tables and were able to pull together chairs from the neighbors who all share that big back yard along the ridge. Put on table clothes that Eliza's mom brought down from Idaho, and other decorations, etc etc... Hyrum went to Provo to pick up the dessert bars. He was surprised when he saw the receipt at how much we paid just for them. We  took the opportunity to tell him that we are happy to give him and his future bride that much or more in cash in exchange of not doing an open house. He said he'll think about it. Yesterday I went to Zurchers and got some balloons and a few other things. Katharine wanted the big "Mr & Mrs" balloons, and as she briefly held it, the Mrs promptly popped. Yay. So then I let her have the other one. That was a waste of $35 bucks. I shall not get those next time. K was cute, and also sad cause Sophi took a crumb of her dessert bar. 

She tried to fix her error and point out that she still had plenty of dessert...

But K wasn't having it. She left the table and went to mourn the injustice of life. 

She knew she had been robbed. 

Haha, she's so dramatic sometimes! But I'm glad that she just goes away by herself to cry, rather than totally throwing a fit. As for the open house, we had lots of extended family, neighbors, and high school friends come out to congratulate Joseph and Eliza. 

Not as many as we had prepped desserts for, but that's ok. 

The deck where the refreshments were served.

Beautiful view of the valley. 

We had music for a little bit of dancing, which the other teenage girls participated in. Most of the college plus people took the opportunity to visit with people they don't see often, like the Hibbert cousin closest in age to Joseph, Emma Smart and her boyfriend Nik. Neil and Hyrum and my parents sat to visit with them. It was so nice for everyone to come out. 

There was some concerning wind at the beginning, that kept blowing over the photos and other things for like 30 minutes, but it died down right when guests started to come and the rest of the evening was perfect. Nice cloud cover so it wasn't too hot, and we saw a lovely sunset. 

Thank you Lord! It was perfect. Now it's 11:45 pm. It's all done and we are ready to go to bed. I'm going to quickly process things again... I think a lot of people didn't know about the open house tonight (maybe didn't notice that date on the invitation?) but that's ok. We very much enjoyed visiting with the people that came. The weather was amazingly wonderful - aside from the wind scare right around 7. We're grateful that it died down and it stayed at a nice low 80s temperature with perfect cloud cover. Our neighbors were so nice to let us use their backyard. Corey and I went to Costco together and got lost of stuff for today and for Park City next week. And now the open house is over and we have like 8 trays of desserts left over that we'll probably take up to Park City to use for our dessert nights. We are all done. Terry helped with the refreshments and water again, she is an angel friend. When I went and got lemons and grapes for tonight, I stocked up on food for Park City for our breakfast and lunches and the night when we are in charge of dinner. And yeah, we'll be serving the dessert bars on the two nights that we are in charge of dessert, so we are ready to go.