June Birthday Party! Fredericksen Edition

The last weekend in June was another big birthday celebration! This time was with the Fredericksen's! Trent's birthday is on the 22nd of June, Jan's is the 24th, mine is the 29th and Melodie's is the 1st of July. And you know what that means... FOUR cakes! :)

 

 

The festivities started on Friday when I got home from work and everyone was already there and ready to get going! Trent's cousins Denise and Staci were in town for Jadyn's basketball tournament, so after a little supper from the Hy-Vee Deli, we went to watch her play. The whole thing reminded of me of my younger days playing basketball in the summers and reminded me of my dad, who was always there with me through it all. I would definitely go back and do that all over again! I hope that she truly enjoys this opportunity she has! I'm so glad we got to see her play!

 

She's the #9 on the right

On Saturday (my birthday!) I started off with one of the hardest and suckiest classes I've been to yet at Kosama. Let's just say there were A LOT of burpees. *bleh!* But I guess that just made all the cake I ate later that night a little more acceptable!

 

Then, mid morning, we all headed to the zoo. It was perfect weather for the zoo and evidently everyone else thought that too. Interstate 80 was backed up because of all the people headed to the zoo!

 

We leisurely made our way around the zoo, checking out all the animals on the way to the opposite side to check out the new exhibit with life-size, dinosaurs that both moved and made noises.



For the most part, I think the girls liked it, but I don't think they liked it very much when they made noises. It was better to just look at them and not see them acting "real" I think!

 

Right when we got out of the Dinosaur exhibit, there was a big grassy area that seemed to have been taken over by prairie dogs. Evidently they dug out of their confined area that is actually way across on the other side of the zoo. They were cute and not really afraid of anything... One of them even crawled into the basket underneath the stroller to check out what we were toting around.

One of them really seemed to like Jenna, too... I'm guessing she smelled like the PB&J sandwich she had for lunch! :)

 

 

Check out this video of the prairie dog shenanigans!

(If you get this in an email: click here to see it on my blog or click here to see it on YouTube)

 

Next, we were off to take a ride around the zoo on the train. It was good to get to ride past all the animals we knew we weren't going to have time to go see close up. It was also nice to be able to sit and relax for a while, too!

 

After the train, the girls went on a ride on the carousel...

 

 

Then we made a stop up to see the otter and some birds and some more prairie dogs who were still in their little area where they were supposed to be.



The girls waiting for the otter to swim by the window again

Mel and Russ and the girls went through the Desert Dome and the Kingdom of the Knight exhibits and we waited by the exit for them to get out and then Trent and I and his parents took off for home to start getting everything ready for supper (mainly to make the ice cream we were having for dessert) while the other four went through the Aquarium and things before they left for home too. The zoo is such a fun place to visit but it sure does wear me out!

 

After everyone made it back to the house, Trent got to work grilling up supper for everyone. We had brats and burgers and chicken along with lettuce salad, strawberry cheesecake salad, and some fruit.

 

 

While Trent was grilling and we were getting supper ready, the girls played on the deck with all their snakes (they had two and then bought two more at the zoo) and the Beanie Babies I had at the house for them to play with. The Beanie Babies were me and my siblings' from when we were younger and I just rediscovered them when we were selling everything from our yesteryears at a garage sale. My aunt reminded me that we had gotten a lot of those Beanie Babies from her because she would let us play with them at her house and then we could take one home with us when we left. That sounded like a wonderful tradition for me to carry on! So I let the girls play with them all weekend and then they each got to take one home before they left. Taylor picked one of the rats (they were the most played with animal all weekend) so she could feed it to her snakes and Jenna picked a bird). I know now that these beanie babies will get A LOT more play time over many years! (That makes standing in line for them when the new ones went on sale a little more worth it, right, Doreen?!)

 

After supper it was time to open presents. The girls helped everyone open their gifts!

 

Trent got a Spork from Mel and Russ and the girls. It is actually a Titanium Spork that is VERY light weight. (It was crazy how light weight it really was!) Trent had asked for it so he could bring it along on their backpacking trip they went on last week. Melodie said she wouldn't ever pass up the opportunity to buy someone a spork when they ask for one since that doesn't happen all too often!

 

 

Casey liked to lay right in the middle of all the action!

Finally, it was time for cake and ice cream!! All of the birthday people got to say what kind of cake they wanted to have, so we had lots of choices! I chose the chocolate cake that Melodie always makes, Jan chose carrot cake, Trent chose lemon cake, and Melodie asked for ice cream, so we made some homemade ice cream! They were all awesome!

Even candles in the ice cream!

Jenna is really eying that cake!!

Saturday wrapped up with everyone watching Wreck it Ralph together and Sunday everyone went to church and then ate at our usual brunch spot, Le Peep, before they all had to head back home.

 

It was another great birthday celebration and I love that we get to celebrate all together each year!