90210

My mother was born on September 2nd so this year (as pointed out by Robin) her birthday is 90210. She loves celebrating birthdays. Growing up my twin sister and I always had the biggest birthday parties. We always were in separate classes, (I think the teachers were afraid that we would cheat, probably rightly so) my mom would have us invite the entire two classes. We would have every theme imaginable in the 80's and 90's. We had a Clue birthday party, Ghost Busters, Freaky Friday, backwards party (where everyone wore their close backwards), a bunch of St. Patrick's Day parties, they were always a ton a fun. So of course my siblings and I wanted to make a huge party for her. For over a year we had kept her surprise cruise a secret, a year, that was rough! She new she was going to Florida with my Dad when they stepped on the plane, she didn't know that we were going to meet her 2 days later and that we all would be going on a western Caribbean cruise. This is a video of her being surprised :)






It was a great week! I love my family so much, they are all people I genuinely love, and I know I would be friends with them even if we weren't family :) Thanks Mom for giving us a reason to celebrate!

First day of school and I am not there!

Benjamin and I missed the first day and first 6 days of school, what awesome parents we are. We surprised my my mother for her 60th birthday with a cruise with her children and our spouses (more on that in another post). My Dad was in on the surprise how he kept it a secret from her shows his talent for sneekary. We had this cruise scheduled a year in advance, when we didn't know if we would be in Benson, TUSD or another district, so we had to make a stab in the dark as to what week to cruise. My siblings who knew their schedules chose the week and we rolled with it. I must say a tear was shed over missing Holman's first day of kindergarten.

Lucky for Benjamin and I, and our kids, Grandma Babs was available. I couldn't ask for a better person to watch the kids. We even left little Anna, but knew she was in VERY capable hands. We are fortunate to live very close to Benjamin's parents, we don't even have to get on a main street to get there, they are right in the neighborhood. Our kids really are fortunate to truly know their Grandparents. So if we must ditch the kids for 10 days Grandma's house is the place to do it. Heck she knows their elementary school because a goodly amount of her kids went there. We couldn't have gone on this once and a life time trip without her service, what can I say she is a saint! I need to mention Grandpa Ronnie, Bekah Mae and Danny also helped with our crew, we sure appreciate them!! These are the pics they took for us on their first day.







Holman Jackson Howe 5 years old
1st day of kindergarten














Olivia Jane Howe 7 years old
1st day of 2nd grade







Isabella Jules Howe 9 years old
1st day of 4th grade
















Parkin Joshua Howe 3 years old
almost first day of preschool :)









Thanks again Barbara and Ron we really appreciate you. I am in constant awe that you raised 10 children, 10 first days of kindergarten, 10 kids to potty train, 10 kids to help graduate, 10 kids to.......