Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

Happy Birthday, Allen!

How blessed I am to have you for my husband!  I am amazed that God brought you to me when we were only 16 years old!  I love growing "old" with you!

You do the dishes almost every evening and always are looking for ways to serve me! 

You love the Lord Jesus and have a passion to study the Word of God.   You live the Christian life.  You are faithful to Him. 

You are a wonderful Papa to our grandchildren!!

I love your sense of humor!  How you make me laugh! 

                  I love your sensitivity. 
                              You will even cry at commercials.  Such a tender heart. 
I often see you fighting tears when listening to Dave preach because you are especially sensitive to the Holy Spirit. He grips you.


You are gentle, kind and thoughtful.                                                   

 Thank you for all you do for us!

This blog has been hijacked by Emeri and Eli.  We love you Papa!  Some more reasons why:

Papa's thought bubble: "Man, keeping up with this 2 year old is hard work!"

Hannah, Sophia, and Claire want to tell Papa happy birthday too!

 To the Papa who loves to play

and cuddle too;

who is always available to give us medical advice

and help us learn and grow;

who takes us on vacation

and pays for it too.

We know being a Dad and Papa is hard work.

So we understand if you occasionally loose your cool

or need a nap.

We hope you have a great birthday!
We love you!


And from one more blog hijacker to the best father in the world... I love you very much and am so lucky to have you in my life.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Day with Sophie and September restaurant pick

When Sophie got off the kindergarten bus, I had a surprise for her.  Would she want to go to Wichita with me? 

"Can we eat there?" 

    "Yes we can" 

"Sure!!"

So off we took.

Sophie was quite the chatter box!  "When is it Halloween?  I think Papa would like a costume.  Boys are into scaring girls.  Boys in the 2nd grade are crazy.  Boys get out of control at PE.  I want a butterfly birthday next year.  I want to be Tinkerbell for Halloween.  What??  That's a purple truck!  You know what my job is?  I have the pledge job at school.  Oh I wish it was the day before yesterday so we could be at the State Fair.  We'd be there right now!  Next time can we go on dollar day?  How many rides could we ride on dollar day?  I want to ride the bumper cars with you.  I love that!........"

She decided she would like to stop at the McD's at Park City.  Now, her stomach can't seem to handle their burgers so we went through the drive through of another place but ate them at McD's.  We did buy a package of fries to share and drinks there though. 

Here's the real reason she wanted to eat there. 

"I miss Hannah.  I wish she were here with me."  She was a little sad playing by herself. 

There was another family there and they asked Sophie if she would want to play with them.  She was so happy about that!  They were even a family from our town too.

I let her play for quite a while and then it was time to go on into Wichita to do some shopping.  Target of course.  And of course we had to go to the toy aisles!  I let her tell me what she wanted for Christmas.

 She liked these homemaker Barbie dolls....and a long list of other things too!

I can never seem to get out of Target under an hour, but we finally did.   Our next stop was Wesley hospital.  Last week my neighbor, who is a nurse there, e-mailed me that as she was walking down the halls, she saw this one picture.  She looked at it and thought "Man, he looks so familiar."  Then she realized it was Al!  Wesley is celebrating 100 years and they have put up archival pictures from the past.

And here is Al from 1978, when he was in residency.  A woman walked by as I was telling Sophie that it was Papa.  This lady said, "My, he's handsome!"  Yes he is!  Even if he does have all gray hair now!

We drove across town to visit Aunt Mindy.  She wasn't feeling well and we wanted to "comfort her", as Sophie said.  Sophie loves 'Xander!

I took Sophia home for supper with her family, then Allen and I went to our September restaurant pick.

It was a local restaurant that Steve and Beth suggested.  So they were the couple we took out for this month.

 

What a fun evening getting to know them better and eating this delicious Mexican cuisine! 

 Thanks for this suggestion and the company!

And as Sophie said "It has been a FULL day!"

Going to the State Fair

The question this year was - should we go to the Kansas State Fair or not?  

We didn't go last year as we had our family vacation at Dauphin Island during that time.  The year prior we had taken Sophia and Hannah.  And the year before that we had taken Hannah (Sophie was too little). 

We had missed dollar day (when it is free to get in with a Dillons card and a dollar a ride). We would have had to pull the kids out of school for that and we didn't. Although the school doesn't mind if you do. We just didn't get around to it.





Then Al said, "When Hannah turns 13 she won't want to go with Nana and Papa anymore." So we decided we needed to make those memories!! They won't stay little forever!!

The rides were  pricey so we gave the children a certain number of rides they could choose.  We walked all around the ride area so they could decide which ones they wanted.  Hannah wanted to do the water ride - but was not quite brave to do it all by herself. 

 Papa didn't want to do it. 

Sophie didn't want to do it.

That left Nana.

You can see a little bit of Hannah behind me.  They made the bigger person be in the front.  I don't think Hannah could see at all where we were going.  But we laughed and laughed and of course, got wet.  I don't think my bottom dried out at all the entire evening.  (the seat of the ride was really wet!  - I should bring a towel to sit on if we do it again!)

A ride Sophia picked out was the teacups.  Papa didn't want to get dizzy.  Hannah didn't want this one as one of her choices.  So again, Nana had to ride.  Did I say "had"?  I LOVED it!  I don't like getting dizzy, but it really was fun! 

 Hannah took my camera and took pictures of us going around and around and around.

 I told Sophie that I remembered riding the teacups at Disneyland in California when we came to the States when I was 7 years old.

Hannah had decided to forgo one ride to try to do a prize booth. 

She did one where you choose a duck and the letter on the bottom of the duck determines what prize you get.  She was able to pick out this penguin in her arm.  She was so happy!

So happy it wasn't one of those MEGA HUMONGOUS stuffed animals that people were carrying around!!

This is a tradition from the last time we came - before we go home, the girls run through the water.  Jill packed us some extra clothes to change into for the ride home.  It was just a mite chilly, but the girls LOVED it!!

One of these years, Claire will need to join us!  Although she sure enjoyed Aunt Mindy taking care of her while mommy and daddy went on a date!

Maybe our Arkansas grandkids can come too one year!