How to celebrate properly

For a while now, we've been trying to figure out a good way to celebrate Sammie's birthday, since it falls right in the glut of a bunch of other holidays and important days.

We've been trying to figure out how to balance the actual birthday with visiting family, taking time off work if we went to see family, doing something special, and so on.

I'd also thought about going to see family since they are, as usual, in crappy state health-wise and we don't know how many more visits there might be with those relatives.

So, we went ahead and finally made plans for the birthday.

We'll head to Arizona to see my father, who has had more health problems (different than the stage 4 lung cancer which somehow decided to up and quite and still in remission).

While there, we will also see my uncle and my cousin's family for a nice holiday get-together.

The next day, we will go ahead and celebrate Sammie's birthday.



OK, probably not clear enough...




All right, fine, I'll make it easier to understand.




No, we are not having a birthday party at Pure, Sapphire, or Rehab. But, we will all drive up, and take the kids to a few places, including the Secret Garden/Dolphin Habitat and other fun kid things to be determined, then begin heading back east.

We don't plan on staying long, but enough that the kids, their grandpa, and hopefully we will all have a good time without having to worry about any unexpected craziness. It's been a crazy and topsy-turvy few weeks, and we almost decided not to go out West.

Even though we won't be able to do some of the things we'd hoped, it will still be good for the kids to see some more evidence that yes, I do have relatives, and yes, this is where you got your silliness and craziness from, and yes, this is what you have to look forward to.

Hah.