Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes.  I feel so loved!  I had a great birthday this past weekend.  It started out with me trying to sleep in–and then hearing my husband and daughter fighting over what to make me for breakfast.  Mackay wanted pancakes, because you can put syrup on pancakes.  Nate knew I hated pancakes and voted french toast.  For whatever reason Mackay doesn’t think you can put syrup on french toast.

Once Nate left for work I had a wonderful time cleaning up a broken candle that somehow landed on the kitchen floor.  And no one got glass in their little toes, which was awesome.    And then the air conditioner went out.  WONDERFUL!  The hottest it ever got in our house was 80 degrees.  So it could have been worse, but it was bad.  I did clean the bathrooms and I did take the kids to get some fish.  And when we got home I was completely exhausted.  At about 3:00pm all I wanted for my birthday was a nap.  I tried turning on a show for the kids and laying on the couch, but somehow that became a personal invitation to Zack to climb all over me.  And then Nate walked in the house.  PRAYERS ANSWERED!  My birthday wish came true–I went into my room, closed the door, and layed on my bed–on top of the covers, of course.

Nate then took me out to dinner to my absolute most favorite place in the whole world–Fernandos.  Once we sat down I realized that some of my favorite clients were seated at the table right next to us!  We had a wonderful chat, they got to meet my wonderful husband, and then they told the wonderful waiter that it was my birthday.  After the entire staff finished singing to me in Spanish, I turned to my most favorite clients and told them their next session would be double the price.

Add a little bit of shopping, a sale at Gap, and a movie from Redbox–one which Nate would NEVER have let me get otherwise, and my night ended pretty well.  When Nate told me he wanted to get me a new desk for my birthday, and I woke him up late at night with a tape measure in the bedroom, it couldn’t have been better!

On Saturday we searched and searched for the perfect desk to no avail.  I really wanted to get an old antique one to refinish, but wasn’t willing to put in the time and effort finding one.  So Nate did.  Saturday night he drove all the way to Keller to pick up my new desk.  And today we will be getting the perfect color of egg-shell paint to make it perfectly mine.

Here’s to a great 25th year!

Hello, Nate here.  I don’t often hijack Kalli’s blog but today is her birthday.  In today’s high-tech world this is my way of passing a simple note and catching her off guard.  Kalli turns 25 today.  Kalli loves her birthday.  She’s been trying to get me to extend her birthday to a whole week and call it Kalli-ckah.  I never like to override what she has written so you can see her own predetermined interpretation of her birthday below.  Its a good thing I planned Fernando’s for dinner tonight!

Kalli means a lot to me.  I don’t really deserve her as a spouse and friend because she is so many leagues ahead of me in many ways.  Case in point, I graduated with a Business degree, she graduated with a Psychology degree.  Lo and behold, she has better business sense than I do as evidenced by her up and coming photography business.  I know you are on this blog to see her work, so you’d probably agree that she is pretty good.  She is a great mother who loves and cares for her kids.  She especially loves to hold her not-so-little Zack.  And she has so much love and patience for Mackay.  When we graduated from school and I got a job with Southwest Airlines I thought our lives were short lived in Dallas–thinking that she’d inevitably want to return home to Utah.  But she has surprised me because she loves Dallas almost permanently.  I think its the abundance of sun and bean burritos.

One of my favorite things about Kalli is her smile.  She has one of the prettiest smiles and it has always drawn me to her.  She wants so bad to offer her kindness to everyone, and sometimes she does this vicariously through me.  “Nate there’s a car pulled over there.   You should help!”…I know nothing about cars.  One of her dreams is to one day have a Foundation.  She may not have ever addressed this, but she also wants to start offering charitable photography to terminal cancer patients so their loved ones have precious photography to remember them by.  Kalli truly has a tender heart.

She doesn’t give herself enough credit.  She stays home all day with our two kids.  I was chatting with a co-worker yesterday about the job of a mother.  Although I reluctantly admit it, Kalli definitely has the harder job of the two of us…staying at home with the kids.  They love her and miss her when she is away doing photography work.

So please join me in celebrating Kalli today.  Please extend your Happy Birthday’s and memories in the comments below or via Facebook.  I love you Kalli and Happy Birthday!

Love, Nate

Kalli’s original post for the day:

“Today is my birthday.  I am the big 2-5.  My husband said after 25 people start actually taking you seriously.  Like you’re finally an adult or something.  I hope so.  But I’m not sure if that will ever happen.  Because I am 25 with a 4 year old and an almost 2 year old, and I’ve been married for 5 years.  All on purpose.  Most people don’t do all those things on purpose at my age.

To celebrate today I am going to clean the bathrooms.  There isn’t a better feeling than having clean bathrooms.  And maybe I’ll buy the kids a new fish.  They had a fish that died a month or so ago.  But we just kept a fish bowl with clean water in it on our kitchen counter so they wouldn’t know.  They didn’t know either, for a few weeks until I told them.  When I finally wanted to take the empty fish bowl off of my counter.

And tonight my hubby is taking me to my absolute most favorite of favorite places in the whole wide world to eat.  Fernandos, in Dallas.  If I had to leave for a deserted island today and only take two things with me it would be Fernandos’ chips and salsa, as well as my Kindle.  Since the deserted island I spend the remainder of my days on would have WIFI and I could read all the books I wanted to.  Well, I guess if I had internet access I’d want my laptop as well.  With a power cord so I could plug it in and keep it charged.”

He’s 21 months.  The binkie is still a huge part of our lives.  And it needs to go.  Our dentist said so.  And I agree.  Count this as officially soliciting advice.

Roatan, Honduras.  A place I want to live?  Heavens, no.  A place I want to visit again someday?  Soon?  Oh heck yes.  Ideally this would be a place I would need to visit a few times.  The first time to take the kiddos.  The second time to take the hubby (aka workhorse assistant) and dub it a photography trip.  There were SO-SO-SO many things I wanted to photograph, namely the painted Pepsi logos on almost every other building (though they served Coke at the restaurant we went to).  I wanted to photograph the children, the families, the houses, the stores, the streets…  But when you are in a packed van with 11 people, I don’t think they would fully appreciate my all-too frequent yells of, “Wait!  Stop!  Pull over.  I have to photograph that.”  Nate bears with it pretty well, but usually through gritted teeth.  Times Nate by 10 and I knew it wouldn’t be a good combination.  Hence, my frequent daydreams of Roatan.  And going back.

Their xylophone thing was completely made out of wood.  I was fascinated.  And as a side note whenever I photograph street performers I get pretty much in their face.  And after I tip very well.

Kyle and Kelcee are always just a bowl full of energy.  Hardly containable, even.

In Roatan we hired a driver and a local to take us around.  He was born and raised on the island, so he knew all the best places to go and all the best things to do.  I hope when I go back I get to find Marvey again.  He first took us to go zip-lining.  Afterwards we went to the beach and did some snorkeling, (where he sat under an umbrella with all of our stuff–thanks Marvey.)  And then we ended with some lunch. The day went by way too fast!

I could tell we were laughed at for being so intrigued by this parrot.

The thing Nate loved most about zip-lining was the fact that American litigation hadn’t made it’s way to these parts yet.  No waivers signed.  No helmets or gloves.  Oh, you’re only wearing flip flops?  Didn’t care.  I’m not sure how old the boys were that helped us through the rainforest.  Or how sturdy the platforms were that they built between zip-lines.  And I’m pretty sure the last half of our trip, where they screamed, “Oh no–WAIT!” every time I jumped really wasn’t the most professional idea they ever had.

But they had pet monkeys, so that made it okay.  When I was missing my kids really bad holding this monkey made me feel better.  Seriously, I wanted to take this little Diego home with me.

This is the restaurant where we got our lunch.  The delicacy of choice?

Iguana.

And to get that image out of your head, here is a final picture from the boat.  Courtesy of Nate.