Ryan's 7th Birthday!: Bailey Beach Week Edition

This beach week was especially fun because the Friday we were there was Ryan's 7th birthday! Ryan had been looking forward to his "Beach Birthday" from the moment he found out about it. The last time we were at the beach Ryan played a lot of Zelda on the Wii with my brother, Chris. So this year when I found this cute little Link figurine at WalMart I just knew I had to do a Zelda themed cake. 

We decorated Ryan's door the night before (didn't get a picture) and put lots of balloons right outside his bedroom door so that the day would be special from the moment he stepped out of bed. After breakfast we went mini golfing as a family.

The golf course was pirate themed. It was an overcast morning and the perfect time for mini golf. There was a breeze and it was a very comfortable temperature. (i.e. not too hot!)

We let a small group of young adults (that's my new buzzword incase you didn't know. Also, I am old.) go in front of us since I knew, with three little ones, we were going to be slow. Karma was swift this time around because the girl we let play through saw me trying to get a picture of the boys and offered to take a family picture for us. Hooray!

We had to.

While we were out golfing, my brother Chris was running all over town getting things ready for a treasure hunt for the boys.

We came home from golf and everyone ate lunch. We were planning on doing family pictures that evening so we decided to make lunch the big meal of the day. When I asked Ryan what he wanted for his birthday meal this year he said, "a hotdog in the microwave. Not on the grill. In the microwave." Who can argue with a 30 second prep time?! The rest of us, however, wanted something off the grill. So while Ryan enjoyed his microwaved hotdog, the rest of us enjoyed hamburgers prepared by Zach (on the grill).

After lunch, Camden was ready for a nap and the boys were ready for their treasure hunt!

It was awesome. My brother wrote clues that took them all around the beach house and in the backyard. The hunt ended on the beach where my brother (or Jolly Captain George Pirate, I should say) buried a real treasure chest with real coins in the sand and marked it with an "X"- real buried treasure!- every little kid's beach dream come true.

Zach brought out the big shovel just in case. Always prepared.

After lots of digging and a little help from Grandma Jodi (you're welcome for not posting that picture, mom) they uncovered the buried treasure!

It was filled with real money! My brother had gone to a bank and got new pennies, dimes and nickels and even a few Sacagawea dollar coins! The boys ran inside and divided the loot. Since it was Ryan's birthday, and my brother is the most awesome uncle ever, he let Ryan keep the treasure chest. Ryan was thrilled!

Once the booty was divided I let Ryan pick a present to open. He chose the one from Brady which ended up being another Ninjago Lego set (you can never have too many Legos! Amiright?!) It was the perfect gift to open mid-day because he spent the next few hours building with his new Legos.

Once Camden woke up from his nap we moved on to the next activity- A water balloon toss! I filled 100 water balloons and we all met out in front of the beach house on the driveway. Everyone participated and what started as a very tame game of water balloon toss quickly escalated into an all out water balloon war! (Hence, the 100 balloons.)

As I mentioned earlier, family pictures were on the schedule for that evening so I did my hair earlier in the day so that I could focus most my efforts on getting the kids ready when the time came. Zach must have missed the memo because he nailed me right in the head with a water balloon right as we were about to head inside. I was not pleased. Not pleased at all. 

Who wouldn't want to have a water balloon war with these fun people!?

Family pictures happened. The timed group shot turned out awesome this year! Everyone was looking at the camera and most were even smiling! (It's too bad we were missing Spanncer and Rachel/Henry bc it would have made an awesome Christmas card picture.) We got a few cute ones of all the grandsons/cousins. I was hoping for a Christmas card worthy family shot of our little family but we didn't end up getting one. Brady was running a pretty high fever at this point and, for whatever reason, everyone else was just super grouchy about pictures and refused to cooperate with my vision. Oh well. I guess we still have 6 months to get a good one!

After the fiasco of pictures was over we all headed back inside for cake and ice cream.

And after that? Presents!

For well over a year now Ryan has been asking me to make him a green ninja costume. And for over a year now I have been putting him off. So when his birthday rolled around this year and he hadn't asked for anything specific I decided to make his Green Ninja dreams come true (although I did not, in fact, make it). His face as he opened it (see above) made it all so, so worth it.

And what's a green ninja suit without a golden sword? Now he is totally legit.

Ryan's beach birthday was everything I could have hoped for. Let's do it again sometime! (Maybe when he turns 9?!) ;)