Birthdays and Shorts

Well my friends, this has been a busy but fun-filled week. As you probably saw in my earlier post, it was Russ's birthday this week. It was so fun watching him get so excited about everything -- but as you can see here, he was particularly excited to open gifts. He is funny because if the gift allows he will put it on as he opens another one, and so on. So by the end of a gift-opening session he is usually sporting quite an interesting look. As you can see, he just opened a "sweet backpack" and is about to open some "awesome bike parts."

We also had a fun little surprise party at one of his favorite restaurants, Rome's Pizza. Thanks to everyone who came! It helped make the perfect day. He was even lucky enough to get an ice cream cake!

The next night we hung out with our friends Reagan and Sada. Good food and good company. They were lucky enough to be exposed to Beatles Rock Band. I think they liked it.

Another one of Russ's gifts was a Texas State Park pass. This one I was also particularly excited about. You know we all love giving gifts to others when it benefits you as well. So we decided to put it to use and checked out Government Canyon state park, that just happens to be about 10 minutes away from our doorstep. Who knew?

We went on a nice long hike and enjoyed the shrubs and cacti of Texas. But in reality, it was actually quite pretty, which was probably amplified by the fact that it was in the 70's.

I have a weird fear of bees. Well, of all insects that can hurt me. And apparently I carry an amber glow around with me.

Russ thought this cactus looked like a man stretching?

Oh and please notice Russ's clothing in the last picture. I wore shorts and sandals in January. And I got hot.

uh, WHAT?!?