Birthday Wall

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted, especially when I have a lot to record! Part of the problem is that my pictures are primarily stored on our home computer in Des Moines but when I'm home I'm pretty busy plus it's in Brad's office where he studies. Unfortunately, I lost my internet at my apartment in Council Bluffs so I can't blog there. And at work I have a computer but not my pictures! So, it's been a struggle to get stuff up.

But on to the best part!

My Dad and I have a special connection- our birthdays are one day apart. He's the 28th and I'm the 29th. We have been trying to spend our birthdays together every-other year for awhile now. We get some, we miss some, but at least we try. Well, this year was awesome. My sis Katherine is going to college about 4 hours from here at Knox which is in Illinois. Parent weekend was the weekend before our birthdays so he and his fiancé Donna flew in to Illinois, went to Parent Weekend, drove out here to Des Moines, spent the week here, and then Kat took a bus over on Friday so we could spend the weekend all together. 

It was a long trip for them but I think it went pretty well! First off, the weather was fantastic- no rain OR snow! Score! And most of the time it was sunny about 65 degrees which around here is nice for this time of year. The colors on the trees were in full swing and how much more can I ask for? 

I had so many plans for the time that we were all together and over-all things were, in my opinion, perfect. The icing was that Brad's schedule lightened up tremendously to where we actually got to see and spend time with him, which was wonderful. 

I had seen a picture of this done (with the big 5-0) from a blog online and knew that I wanted to reproduce it and I knew just the wall. This is the wall dividing the dining room and the kitchen so when we were all in there eating and talking, we could see the pictures, which I loved. Sad thing is that the paint on the wall did not love tape and they continually would randomly fall :( We kept putting them back up over and over until I gave in and down they went. The best part was Grammy (Dad's Mom) sent me pictures of when Dad was a kid. I had never seen any of the pictures she sent and it was seriously so cool. He was a cute kid!! So we took them all down and put them in an album for him to keep. It was an extra treat that the morning of his birthday (friday) Brad had a big exam and left very early in the morning. When Brad left I jumped up, tossed on some sweats and ran to Walmart and got the balloons, printed more pics, ran home, and got the wall up so when he woke up and came down he was all surprised. It was so worth it :)

The last pic is like Where's-Waldo, only: Where's Brad?