Operation Surprise Birthday

  Nine years ago we were blessed with the arrival of our first baby.  Bubby loves celebrations, but since the arrival of our Baby Boy I thought I would lay low on organizing festivities this year.  The only problem is how do you argue with this sweet boy who comes up to you a mere 2 weeks prior to his birthday and says "Mom, I wouldn't mind if you threw me a surprise party for my birthday".  Drat!  It took me a while to figure something out, but he's been dying to go to the Combat Air Museum in the Capitol, so I organized an impromptu field trip for our homeschooling buddies which included touring the museum & then eating a sack lunch on the State Historical Society grounds followed by cake & walking the trails.  Simple, but it would do the trick.  One of Bubby's best buds came with us to the museum and we met some of our other buddies and Ducky and Grandma there. Bubby didn't know our destination until we arrived - he was so excited!

overlooking the museum

The kids loved the planes, and even though we didn't spend much time at each display, they enjoyed every minute.

sitting in one of the helicopters

In fact, most our time looked like this...

we adults just tried to keep up.  In fact, in the second hangar there were so many planes the kids tried to keep away from the parents and all we could hear was the sound of their flip flops:)
  One of the highlights of the museum this time was a really nice display of Daniel Forbes who is from our hometown (you can read about our adventure with him here).
   Our buddies who joined us at the museum had to leave, but some other buddies were able to join us at the Historical Society instead so the fun continued!  At first we were worried about our plans for eating outdoors...

burning the prairie grass at the Historical Society

but the wind was blowing away from us and it was finished rather quickly so it didn't change our plans one bit!  We played on their wonderful playground, ate, opened presents, and ate cake and then went on a walk to two of the highlights of the trails out there on the grounds - the bridges!  One is a historical bridge that has been transplanted there, the other is a suspension bridge.  It was under the suspension bridge that the kids explored the creek and built little "wells", caught nightcrawlers and threw rocks into the deeper water.  Fun stuff!

We were so blessed to spend such a wonderful day with our good buddies!  Bubby dubbed it the best birthday ever!