Birthday Wishes--Woche 4

Hang on everyone, we have a teenager in the house!  The teenager is finally official, even though certain teenager eating habits and emotional swings have been present in the house for a few months.  We are excited for Dane! 

The volcano cake

We celebrated the usual way, with letting Dane choose what he wanted to do.  He decided that he wanted to go bowling with his friends.  We haven't ever done "friend" birthday parties, and we decided not to start.  So, in the next couple of weeks, we will let Dane go bowling with his friends, but for his actual birthday, we spent the day together as a family.  We went to Dane's favorite restaurant, Athena, for dinner, watched a movie at home, and of course, had cake and ice cream!!  Dane opted for a salted caramel chocolate cake again this year--Yum!! 

Dan just got back from a week back in Indiana.  We like it when he goes to the States to pick up some items that we can't find here and miss.  I don't think he likes it though, because it is somehow not worth the time spent on airplanes to get there.  With that though, we are stocked up on candy, chips and popcorn. (They do have popcorn here, but it pops very small and has a ton of "old maids").  It's nice to have popcorn that doesn't break your teeth!  We even got a bottle of Ranch!  I am amazed at all the stuff Dan can fit into his suitcases.  The kids feel like it's Christmas whenever he gets back.

Dan got the bikes out of the storage room and got them back to working condition.  Dyllan and Deagan have been having fun riding around our courtyard.  Deagan asked for the training wheels to be taken off his bike.  When we left Indiana, he had just learned to ride a bike without training wheels.  We learned last summer (when we rented bikes to explore Kotor), that he had forgotten how to ride a bike--it is possible to forget how to ride a bike.  He couldn't ride the bike there, and had to use a scooter.  Now, he can ride around the courtyard without training wheels.  Hopefully, we can get him on the canal trail soon and he can really learn how to ride--without auto traffic and not too many other bicyclers.  Dane is enjoying his new swayboard that he got for his birthday.  I'm amazed at how well he can ride it after only 2 days.  I don't think I could get on, let alone, ride it any where. 

When I asked Dane what he wanted for his birthday, he replied with "a soprano saxophone".  I told him to just name his current (alto) saxophone a girl name, like, Marlene.  He didn't think that was very funny.  Dane has enjoyed the weekend putting together Lego, playing on his swayboard, and also playing around with his new soprano saxophone, Marlene.  He will have to put in a lot of practice, (as the first time he tried to play it, no sound came out), but he is excited to be able to learn it.