Birthday Bowling 2018

Someone asked Gregg how long his Birthday Bowling tradition has been going on - we thought back and decided it's been something like ten years (give or take)!  I know we didn't bowl five years ago in Colorado when my bowling ball belly was full of Callie, but I do remember bowling with Gregg and his family before we were married (or even engaged), and I also remember hearing stories about bowling parties before my time.  So it's been a long time.  And I hope it continues for a long time to come.  We love it.  This year, we changed venues, and it turned out to be a great thing.  The past couple of years here in Eden we have met at the Weber State Wildcat Lanes, where we rented out half of the alley (four lanes) for an hour and could bowl as much as we wanted.  This year they're not open on Saturdays, so we had to find an alternative.  Enter Fat Cats in downtown Ogden.  This was perfect: lots of space, cheap games and shoe rentals (99 cents each!), no time limit (so if people were a bit late, they could still get a full game in, or maybe even two!).  I think we'll be back to this spot next year, for sure.  We had a great crowd come celebrate with us: Paul and Kim, Heather and Scott and boys, Richard and Peggy, Kylie and Michael, Nate and Rachelle and kids, Heather and Terrell and Grace, and Swaze (and Steve and Shellice Nance and kids joined us later for dinner at home).

Bonus: this place had sweet arcade games to ride and "play".

Dinner was fabulous, with everyone contributing delicious things: we had deli sandwiches, chips, fruit, baked beans, Swaze's famous cherry dream "salad", coleslaw, oriental salad, and pop.  We visited and ate and then it was time for presents!  (So many presents this week!)  After all the gifts were opened, it was time to have cake!  Cal's Chocolate Covered Strawberry number turned out quite delicious, if I do say so myself.  And Gregg chose a cheesecake (always cheesecake), opting for a Blueberry Cobbler version this year (I used my Apple Crisp Cheesecake recipe, but subbed blueberry pie filling in for the apple and left off the caramel topping).  Yum-o-rama.  I tell you what, the cakes are my favorite part of birthdays.  But I'm glad they only come once a year.  ;)  But the fun wasn't over yet!  When everyone was done eating cake, Cal had a special surprise we had been working on for the previous week or so: a homemade pinata, filled with last year's parade candy and a few fresh fruit snack packs and strung up over the basketball hoop in the backyard.  It was a hit with the kids (hardy har har) and luckily we had Dray around to thwack it open, since the 5-and-under crowd wasn't getting too far in actually making contact with stick to pinata. 

Perler beads from G&G Elwood - so fun!

Construction paper, crayons and another year of High Five Mag -
she loves it and can't wait for the mail to bring her a new
magazine each month.

Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?!

Swing batter, batter.

He's ready for attack.

Ev takes a turn.

And Gracie, too - good form, but not much
power yet.

Brought in the big guns here with Dray.
He got the deed done.

The most massive and amazing set of sidewalk chalk came
from Swaze - it was a perfect end to the evening to sit down
and doodle a bit before everyone left.

Happy birthday, my Callie June!

That's a wrap!  Till next year, when we party hard again to celebrate these two awesome humans I get to call family.