~Posted by Roma
(Before I start this
post, some good news for our readers: our family has finally moved from Texas
to Oklahoma, and are reunited with my Dad after 9 long months! J Things are going very well, and we are getting settled
in to yet another new home and new adventure. We will do a post about that move
soon!)
The
last two birthdays of the year are my Dad’s and Bianca’s! Their birthdays are only
a little over a week apart! So, back in July, we celebrated Dad and Bianca. We
decided to combine Dad’s birthday and the 4th of July together. So,
we not only had traditional birthday cake and gifts, but we also set off
fireworks and had friends from church over. (This was all while we still lived
in TX) One very special thing we did for Dad this year, was creating a binder
full of letters from us, family, distant relatives, friends, co-workers,
pastors, and mentors. There were quite a few letters! Then I decorated the
binder and Mom put it all together and we presented it to my Dad on his special
day! He appreciated it so much since we had done the same thing for Mom a few
years ago. The Reverend that married my parents even wrote a letter! J
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In addition to the
binder, we made a “Blessings of Mark” framed picture.
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We
had a fun time with family and friends and Mom’s famous double chocolate ring
cake and really enjoyed the day. (And now that we live in OK it has been so
nice seeing Dad every night!!)
Then
came Bianca’s birthday. We celebrated that everywhere! We celebrated it in
Ohio, in our home in northern Texas, in Dallas Texas…so we celebrated around 3
times. J First, Mom had decided we needed to take a
spontaneous trip to Ohio to surprise the family, since we hadn’t seen them in
so long. Of course we were thrilled to do this and it was so hard to keep it a
secret! (My Mom’s parents knew we were coming but her younger brother and his
wife and two boys did not know at all.) I recorded a video of us walking into
the kitchen where our Uncle J, Aunt C, and cousins E and J were sitting, and it
was epic! J We had a wonderful
visit! Besides doing a lot of catching up, visiting other distant relatives,
going to the movies, swimming, etc., Bianca enjoyed birthday peach cobbler and
ice cream, and presents.
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Bianca with Uncle J
and Aunt C in front of Cracker Barrel on a Sunday afternoon.
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Our Mom just loved
getting to see her brother again—and he loved seeing her! Here are the two of
them at our cousin E’s baseball game one day.
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When
we returned safely from Ohio, our home-away-from home brothers K and O came
over one day so we could celebrate Bianca’s birthday…again! We had a yummy
dinner and ended it all with Carrot cake, German chocolate cake, ice cream, and
more gifts. (We can’t celebrate enough. J)
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Bianca with her
favorite OLDER brothers. J
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But
the celebrating wasn’t over yet. We had to take Bianca on a surprise birthday
trip, of course! So we piled in the minivan one day and found ourselves at…the
Cowgirl Museum in the Dallas/Fort Worth area! It was the coolest museum! They
showed a lot of short videos, displayed cowgirl clothes, guns, had a station
where you could sit on a fake horse and watch yourself ride a “bucking horse”
on the screen in front of you, and of course, there were plenty of exhibits on the
history of cowgirls. We enjoyed going to a pretty unique museum for a change.
Pictures were not allowed, so we got pictures of the outside. J
Then
after eating a snack at Taco Cabana, we drove over to our next surprise. And
boy, were we surprised! We pulled into the driveway of the H family’s house!!!
We haven’t known the H family for very long, but Bianca and Ben had met their
oldest son through a college gathering and they are just the sweetest,
Christian homeschooled family with five kids just like us! (More like
teen/young adult kids.) We spent the evening with them. They made us the most
delicious meal; the fellowship was wonderful; the cake, the 10 different
flavors of ice cream (YES!!); the gift basket they lovingly put together for
Bianca; the rose bush they gave us to take to OK—it was such an awesome
evening! We 10 kids probably enjoyed the game of Capture the Flag outside the
most. Girls against boys. And the girls WON!
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All of us kids posing
with the H kids before we all got sweaty playing.
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We ended Bianca’s
sweet birthday celebration by going on a photo shoot with this guy right here
being one of the photographers.
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This
is Jessie. Bianca recently announced on her blog that she is being courted by
this godly young man. Go to her blog here
for the details. I snuck this picture of them and really like it. I’ve been a
pretty sneaky chaperone for the last few months haha!
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Bianca
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So,
there you have it. No more birthdays until 2016! J There were so many
great pictures of Bianca, and Jessie did a great job, but I’m going to run out
of room here. Now, for a blog post about MOVING from TX to OKIE……
Have
a blessed day!