Burney Falls: The Happiest Place on Earth!

Burney Falls could well be the happiest place on earth. Kids are happy with the abundance of rocks, dirt, water, and critters; parents are happy hanging around the campfire swapping stories and taking turns cooking; grandparents are happy watching the energy and giggles of the grandkids...see for yourself...

This year at Burney...

...Jade got to catch a fish with Grandpa Severson!

...Lawrence hiked/scrambled ALL the way to the base of the falls pool and felt some of the small trickling waterfalls, proudly exclaiming, "I touched the Burney Falls!"

...we went on a night hike along the rim trail and up the falls trail!

...Uncle Matt and cousin Ezra caught the most enormous tadpoles I've ever seen!

...we all felt a little nostalgic thinking that next year, Nana and Papa will be missing the Falls at memorial day...the mission calls!

...everyone was relaxed and happy and in heaven in the happiest place on earth!

Dawna's Birthday Bash!

 Dawna was a very, very lucky birthday girl this year.  Her birthday celebrations started a week before her birthday.  I was not going to attempt going camping at 37 weeks pregnant, so Nana and Papa decided to take Dawna to Burney Falls as part of her birthday present.  She had four days of fun with no mom or dad to pester her! She fished, hiked, and played with cousins to her heart's contentment!

Of course Adele was there to share all the fun with!

Sunday fish Hatchery: the kids were spoiled with a whole bucket of food from the feeding truck! No nickles and dimes this time!  Dawna asked Adele to bring her skirt so they could match on Sunday. Now you can't even tell them apart :)

Fishing with Adele! Papa was kept busy putting worms on hooks for these girls!

Caught one!  On a Disney Princess fishing pole!  These poles are magic, I'm told!

Hiking with Aaron & Em and family: Dawna earned the Burney Falls patch! 

The Next weekend...

Saturday, Dawna's actual birthday, dawned with her up early to see what goodies awaited her... 

Daddy got up early and made Swedish Pancakes for everyone!  Then we opened up presents.

First up was a beautiful mirror which came all the way from Kumamoto Castle in Japan.  This present was wrapped in 4 layers, so it took a while to open, which I thought was great! 

 

After that came a barrage of "From My Childhood to Your Childhood" type of presents.  Dawna had recently read the American Girl Samantha series and really wanted a Samantha doll.  I was sad to learn that they have retired Samantha and no longer sell her.  But, with mom's magic, all things are possible :) I loved watching her adore Samantha all day long...

...reading stories to her... 

 ...coloring with her (the Spiderman velvet coloring pages were Larry's present to Dawna)... Dawna set up a little "bedroom" for Samantha in her closet, complete with a box bed and dresser. This was a very "Toy Story 3" moment for me, if you know what I mean :) 

Later, I told Dawna I was taking her and Samantha out to lunch.  For obvious reasons, I had not planned a big party for her this year, in case of last minute cancellation, so on Thursday I called her primary class friends and arranged a "Ladies Luncheon."  I made Dawna sit blindfolded in the car while we drove around and picked up her friends.  She didn't know at first that anyone was in the car, but little girls stay quiet for only so long...

We arrived at Nana's house.  Dawna guessed we were at Denny's or the Elephant Bar... nope! I did a good job driving her around and confusing her :) 

 Here's Kenna, Sara, Dawna, Hope, and Chloe, all dressed, with a little doll friend to enjoy a fancy lunch with!

 The Dolls had a little tea party while the girls all ate lunch: Chicken, watermelon, rolls, and sprite!

 We tried to make ice cream, just like Samantha would have, by rolling it in cans outside... the girls didn't last long enough to get it frozen, but Jon, stud muffin that he is, kept working at it for over an hour so we could all enjoy fresh ice cream with the "petit fours" that Dawna requested for her cake (if you've ever read "Happy Birthday Samantha" this should all sound pretty familiar).
 

And here's my embarrassing moment for the day: I totally put 6 candles on her cake! Luckily, Nana was paying attention and slipped one more candle on top before I took it out... I can't believe my baby is SEVEN! That's... such a big kid!

But... even her surprise luncheon was not the end of the fun... After the party, Daddy took her rock climbing and out to dinner... talk about a full day of birthday fun! The two of them were climbing for FIVE HOURS! Jon was worn out by Dawna.  

Whew... now all we have to do is have a baby... that should feel relaxing after all this!

Dawna is FOUR!

Can you believe I have a FOUR year old??? Holy moly...

As I was thinking about birthday party ideas, I was saddened to realize that since her "Teddy Bear Picnic" party last year, all but one of the friends that came to her party have moved away... and the last one is moving away in August... so so sad... But then I remembered we were going to be at Burney Falls for the three days before her birthday. I put the idea into her head to have her birthday party at Burney Falls so some of her cousins could come to her party. She went for it and was totally excited and told all kinds of people about her upcoming party at Burney... including, but not limited to, the hard core biker woman who was standing in front of us in line for the bathroom at some random gas station between here and Burney Falls... she was very nice to Dawna and even offered her some French Onion Sun Chips :)

Anyway, Dawna has been really into the "Go Diego Go" show, wherein Diego finds some kind of animal in trouble and then goes on an elaborate adventure to rescue said animal while learning about that animal's habitat, diet, predators, etc. So by the end of the show, not only have you rescued the animal, but you also know all about that animal!

So, for her party at Burney Falls, Dawna led a Diego-style baby lizard rescue! It began with baby lizards who had somehow gotten trapped inside birthday balloons. Each kid had to pop a balloon to get the baby lizard out.
(Not so easy to get miniature lizard figurines into balloons, by the way... Emily is a super-star lizard stuffer!) So, once the baby lizards were free of the balloons, they had to find their mommy and daddy, who were going to meet them at Dawna's birthday party. We had to follow the lizard prints to get to the party...
(This is all the 4-year old kids with their baby lizards -- and of course Larry can't be left out of anything Dawna is doing).

First, they had to identify which tracks were lizard tracks... I had printed out pictures of quail, raccoon, and snake tracks as well... they totally got it right... such smart kiddies!

So the kids swished their lizard tails over to a tree where they found more lizard tracks.
From there, the baby lizards were cold, so they wanted to go sit on a rock in the sun:
Then, a hawk was swooping overhead, so the baby lizards ran and hid under a picnic table:
All that running made them hungry, so they went to look for bugs under a log (for some reason, our group seemed to grow as we kept following the lizard tracks):

Then they used their lizard claws to walk across the log, scared away a raccoon with Diego horns, and then followed mommy lizard to Dawna's birthday party...
...where we sang happy birthday, blew out candles, and enjoyed pre-made angel-food cake :)

Here's the party guests: Hannah, Adele, Dawna, and Nathan... with a couple little brother tag-alongs and mommy helpers :)

But, just so you know she wasn't slighted on her REAL birthday... we saved her big present until we got home!

Dawna loved riding her bike for a couple minutes today... before she came down with a fever and threw up twice... sad way to spend her 4th birthday... but at least she got to enjoy a party and presents and cake all before she got sick... I really hope she'll be better tomorrow...