9...already??

I am SO far behind on blog posts that I'm almost scared to start blogging again.  Raelee is away at her Granny and Papa's house and Todd is at work and I'm insanely bored. It's an odd feeling..lol I actually watched daytime tv today (I NEVER do that, it never even occurs to me to turn it on!) and took a 2.5 hour nap today. I would wake up, consider getting up and quickly put that to rest as I nodded back off again. I fell asleep watching tv and it was funny. I kept dreaming about the sounds I was hearing on TV. At one point, I jumped up to answer the door bell I distinctly heard. I don't even HAVE a doorbell..lol

So, I never posted pictures of Raelee's 9th birthday. I must say she had a fabulous one, complete with her first annual scavenger hunt. My mom and dad did that for us ever year and we always loved it. I'm excited to start doing that for her!  She actually had 2 'parties'. One with family and cousins. It was combined with a crawfish boil and the other was with her very best friend and HER family. It was great. I'm not in to huge birthday parties. Not my think. I wanted to sing from the rooftops when she just wanted her 'bff' this year.  Granny, Papa, Grandma, Cousins, and Aunt Shari were all here to celebrate her birthday with her the weekend before. They were all here for her dance production too. So much fun!! I'm so glad her cousins are living close, at least for a little while. I'm very grateful to give her the 'cousin experience' for a short period of time. She is loving it!

Anyway, here are a few pictures. Somehow I managed not to get ONE picture of Granny, Papa, Megan and other family members. I have no idea how I managed that.  They were there though!!

Raelee in her production costume. She was a canary!

On their way to go tubing

Nicole and Raelee having fun tubing. They are getting really good at it!!

Having fun playing in the water. This is about the only time this slide get's used..when people are over. They use it as  a  waterslide.

Having fun playing 'beauty salon'

Opening presents

She got a new bike!!

Strawberry pie birthday cake!

Now for her actual birthday, the ONLY kind of party she wanted was with her BFF (Sophie) and Sophie's family. She wanted to take them to Global Wildlife. It is one of our favorite places to go and she wanted to share it with her friends.  Sounds like the perfect day to me!!

This is the party with her friends that was ON her birthday. 

This camel never even got up completely to come and see us. He crawled all the way to the tram. Too funny!

Raelee and her BFF Sophie

Raelee's favorite animal is the Giraffe. She was thrilled to be able to feed them again.

My 9 year old...wow!

A wind storm kicked up and it got insanely windy. The white out behind Todd is not blurred on purpose. It's dust from the wind storm. It was crazy!

The wind quickly turned into a full on rain/thunder storm. We got SOAKED. Soaked doesn't even begin to describe it. We were drenched and still had over a 2 hour drive home. It was insane. We were all in fits of giggles though and it won't be a birthday she is soon to forget for sure.  Thank you to our friends for going with us!!