Celebrating 21 in Style

On the 21st anniversary of her birth--Caelan spent an entire fun day with Noah's family! They brunched, they painted at a pottery store, they enjoyed dinner, and then they made reservations at a nice venue for Caelan to try her first alcoholic beverage. It was the first time in, let's see, I added it up . . . 73 birthdays that I've not seen one of our kids on their special day. Whoa! But, at the same time, that's a pretty solid record, and we can't always be together for all the special days. I'm glad she got to make some special memories with her in-laws!

And even though we *missed* celebrating together on her exact birthday, we arranged to celebrate a few days later with a delicious breakfast at a fancy breakfast-only restaurant and then ice skating on the new open-air ice ribbon on the riverfront.

Brennen had to work (he gave Caelan her birthday gift on Christmas) and Gabby had to get to work, so the remaining five of us hit the ice. Caelan had her own skates, which was worth it! Skate rental was only $5, but those things were like foot tanks, lol! The ice was choppy like skating on a frozen river (which is how I grew up--okay, pond connected to a river) and wipeouts around us were abundant! Avoiding the freefalling crowd was a bit of a challenge--as was being old and out of shape, heehee :) We'd make one loop around the ribbon, and then sit down for two. And then do another loop around the ribbon, and then Buck would try to start the gas firepit. And then we'd go for another round of ribbon, and back to rest. But it was super fun being outside in the crisp air, listening to Christmas tunes, enjoying the fun of a day off in the middle of the week. It was a great way to celebrate Caelan's 21st birthday!

Rest time selfies! :)

I'm sure Graysen was having far more fun than he's willing to share in these photos ;) We strolled through the park and then headed home--well, the newlyweds headed back to his family's house for a belated brother-in-law birthday dinner. This is a busy season for celebrations in their family, too!