Happy Birthday to Nate and a Trip to the Park

Our dear friend Nate had a birthday this weekend, his age will go unmentioned, but we will just say he is close to retirement.......just kidding, he is just "closer" to retirement. When I think about it though, it would be nice not to have to go to work if you didn't have to and instead go play a round of golf!

Anyway, he and Staci came over and we had some dinner and then we went to the park to run Charlie boy around with the Frisbee and run Grace around on the playground. It was a nice break for me and Darc who usually are chasing Grace all over the place.


This is aunt Staci (or Shtashee as Grace says) going down the slide with Gracie, she loved it (both of them).

Here is uncle Nnnnnnnate showing Grace the incorrect way to go down a slide.

But she said, "NO WAY! I know how to go down the slide, and how to do a cheesy smile at the bottom to boot!"

After the slide it was time to play with her ball that she got for her birthday.

Here she is in action with uncle Nnnnnnnate again running away so he can throw it at her bum again and get her laughing hysterically.

Then it was back to the playground to go on the barf-o-matic.



Even Charlie boy was having fun. He found a stick that was way longer than himself,............you could almost say he bit off more than he could chew! The bummer about this picture is that you can't tell that he had been walking down this sidewalk and totally ran into that trash can with the stick in his mouth causing him to do a complete jerk of the head and back peddle his steps.....it was really funny.

Now, I usually hate birthdays as I realize I am one year older and thus closer to what the kids label as an "old man". I don't know, I probably am already there, but that is okay, because I have a great family and friends to share it with. I just hope that my family can bring many more people joy than just me, and brought happiness to a friends birthday that maybe would have otherwise been like the way I feel on my birthdays.

One other note about my dread of birthdays though is that more and more I am realizing that I am also one year closer to heaven and that is not so bad eh! When that day comes I will have a new body, one that does not "feel" older with each passing day, and a day with Grace would not wear me out as I chase her across perfectly picturesque meadows playing with a ball and going down slides with Darc and Joy chasing behind us, yes Heaven will be sweet!!!

- RJ