Birthdays and Other Crazy Events

This last week has been pretty eventful. We've been a bit focused on Grig's job and so I didn't talk about a lot of the things that happened. This will have to be my catch-up post. 

First of all, our car broke down again. I was at a relief society meeting, and after I came out of the church, the car wouldn't start. We tried to jump it, but it wouldn't hold any kind of charge. We had to leave it in the church parking lot. One of the men who was there offered to drive Grig into work, if he needed a ride. That was very kind of him. However, it turned out that Allopex had the next two days off, so Grig was able to borrow his car while we tried to get ours figured out. 

The next day was my birthday! I turned 29. It's hard to believe that I'm almost 30. I guess I'll just have to enjoy my last year of being in my 20's. 

I had a pretty great party. Kevin made me a cake while his dad was at work. He did a pretty good job. He tasted it every few minutes and told me that it was still yummy. 

After Grig got home, we had a birthday party for me. I finally got to open my presents, which had been sitting next to my computer and mocking me for the last couple of weeks. I was pretty excited about my gifts. I got Kim Possible Season 1, a microphone for the computer (so I can work on more Atomic Otter Cinema videos), a new swing for our playset, and the book "Avatar: The Search." We finally know what happens to Zuko's mother. Allopex and Havelock joined us for the party. Grig's taking the picture, so he's not in this one. 

 However, he did help Kevin finish my cake. They're quite the pair.

 Arkhon wanted to help with the cake too, but he behaved himself. Kevin, on the other hand, was feeling a bit mischievous. I had spice cake with a cream cheese frosting. It was pretty yummy.

 Then, the next day, my grandmother was kind enough to pick me up and take Kevin and me to her home for another party. My sister was up visiting, and so we had breakfast together, and then they gave me cake again! I love angel food cake, so I was pretty excited. We had a fun time visiting with family, and my sister revealed the gender of her baby. I felt pretty loved afterward. It is nice when people think of you.

 We had our car towed that day, and found out that our battery was dead. Our mechanic is amazing, so they got our car started and Grig went and bought a new battery and put it in himself. It ended up costing far less than we thought it was going to. We're grateful it wasn't the alternator.

That same day, we had Loki (Arkhon's brother) come and stay over. They really love each other, and he enjoyed playing with his brother. They wore each other out.

 He stayed with us for a couple days, and we all enjoyed having him around. He's a lot fluffier than Arkhon, but he's smart and he figured out our house rules pretty quickly. They're both really good dogs.

Arkhon's on the left, and Loki's on the right. 

Loki's a little heavier, but Arkhon is faster.

 Another exciting event this week is that we were invited to a birthday party with one of Kevin's friends. They invited us to go bowling with them. It was Kevin's first time bowling and he loved it!

 Every time he'd knock over a pin, he'd do a victory dance and spin around. It was pretty adorable. We sure do love our boy. He and the birthday boy also danced to the music in between their turns. They had a lot of fun.

The family also has a little girl who is quite the snuggler. Kevin just adores her. He loves to kiss her and push her cheeks in and play with her. Here is a picture of the three of us cuddling.

 After we finished our game (which I didn't win, though I was leading for a while), we had cake. It was a really yummy Reese's cake. We're really grateful that they invited us to join them for their party.

 After we finished eating and opening presents, we let Kevin "drive" on one of the games. He's not actually driving. We had to leave soon and didn't want to go spend money on the arcade, but he sure thought he was. He wasn't very happy when we had to go home to go to bed.

 Sunday, we went for a walk around a nearby temple. The gates were closed, so we walked all around the outside, and then went down a nearby trail. We had a great time, though Kevin is really into eating snow right now, and that's all he wanted to do.

 The next few pictures are from the trail we were walking on. Half-way down, we saw a deer trail going up the mountain. I was a little nervous about leaving the human trail, but it was really fun, and steep. We saw deer tracks, and made our way back up to the sidewalk. It's good to do things that are brave sometimes.

We didn't even die!

 One last thing I wanted to add. Kevin loves to sword fight with Allopex. The funniest part though, is the fact that every time they sword fight, Arkhon goes and gets his "sword" as well. He grabs a rawhide bone and brings it over. He'll fence with his bone to the best of his ability. He loves it when you knock it out of his mouth. Here's a picture of him sword fighting with the other two.

That ends a pretty crazy week!