..36...

McPhie celebration season has come to an end.

Gwen, Drake, and I all have birthdays in July, and then in the first couple of weeks of August is our anniversary, then Ryan's birthday.

Ryan's birthday came on a Friday.

Fridays are trial days.

So we sent him off to trial with a yummy waffle breakfast.

I got Ryan this watch for his birthday.

 But in typical Ryan fashion, he wants to exchange it.

Maybe for this one...

or this one.

Which one do you like better?  I thought about the light wood one, but thought it might get dirty.??  So here's some advice if any of you, for any reason, give Ryan a gift for any occasion, give him a gift card.  I still try and give him gifts, but they are just about always getting exchanged.  

It's okay.

Well he had a good trial (won on one count, lost on another; but he knew that one would be tough).  We celebrated with dinner and The Wolverine.  

It's a good one.  Even though Hugh Jackman was not in very good shape for it.

Not.

Yes, I just said "not".

Then we had family birthday party on Sunday.

 And I was too lazy to put 36 candles on the cake, so we had 3 candles + 6 candles.  It equals 36 in candle math.

Oh yah, and here are the kids with their As You Wish paintings from our family anniversary date.

Drake's hair is awesome

 Oh, and here's Drake's self portrait on the wall in school.

Notice the robot/lego arm, and the gun arm.
But no legs.
I love his creativity!

Happy birthday Ryan.

eight eight thirteen

10 years ago, my car of college girls ran into a car of boys in the dollar movie theater parking lot in Provo.  The boys came over to our apartment, and upon coming in the door, Ryan noticed that he and I had the same studded belt on so he plopped down by me on the couch and we started talking music and bands.  He found out I hadn't seen Braveheart which meant he had to show it to me.  We talked all night.

He showed me Braveheart a few days later.

I tried to not like him.

I was graduating in a month and moving home, and last thing I wanted was a long distance relationship.

But Ryan was persistent.

And I gave in.

I fell hard and fast.

We were married in Oakland, on a gorgeous day.

 We were an hour and a half late to our luncheon because we were taking pictures and then in bad traffic from Oakland to Sacramento.

 We had a gorgeous reception in the backyard of Ryan's house.

 We had a little cake fight.

 We were so excited to be starting eternity together.

 And we became Mr. and Mrs. McPhie.

I won't lie and say that everything has been peachy keen since.

Marriage is hard.

We've had happiness, and sorrow.  Fights and laughter.  But most of all, we've had each other.  We have leaned on each other and do truly love each other more now than we did then.  

10 years later, I woke up to this.

 My side of the bathroom mirror covered in things from 2003.

Justin Timberlake, Cry Me a River?  Check.

Black Eyed Peas?  Check.

Santa Cruz trip?  Check.

Cancun trip?  Check.

Moving to AZ?  Check.

And around the house, pictures like this.

Braveheart - first date.

 This little gem was on the fridge.  I said, I thought Kendra Wilkinson had her baby uno way after 2003.  Ryan said that picture wasn't hung up because it happened in 2003, but this picture reminded him of us.  

Naturally.

The resemblance is uncanny.  

Oh, and this picture was still on our fridge when we had a babysitter in our house for seven hours.  She must think we're awesome.  Or super creeps.

Ryan was in court all day on our anniversary, and was prepping for a trial the following day, so we had a low key Italian lunch date, just like on our wedding day.

Then he planned a Saturday day-date.

We were going to hike Camelback, which he really was doing for me, because I always want to go hike, but he doesn't want to wake up.

10 years!  It's all down hill from here.  The mountain that is.

 We made it to the top!

Oh ya, and this baby came with us.

Going up was the easy part, it was coming down that I felt it.

I wore my belly band, but still needed an arm to support my belly.

I realized that you naturally lean back a little when going down hill, and with all this mass in front of me, I needed to lean extra far back to compensate.  Core. Work. Out.

We spent the rest of the day together, hanging out, having fun, bringing up memories from the last 10 years.  

It was a great anniversary.

Even if we weren't on a cruise.

(apparently they don't like preggo people on cruises)

I love you so much Ryan McPhie!

Thank you for putting up with me for the last ten years.

I'm excited for what's in store.

getting schooled

Today was my first day of my last year of school!  And since I don't have a wife or a mother to insist on first day of school pictures, I have no visual proof to show you.

But since I am a mother of kids who already started school, I do have back to school pictures of them!

 Drake - 1st grade, and Gwen - 3rd grade

The first day of school their bus was 1/2 an hour late getting them home!!  And the worst part of it, was that they were stuck on their bus for an hour, and their bus DOESN'T have air conditioning.  It was 115º that day people!!!  Both of them had just sweated through their shirts and had their hair sticking to their wet little faces. 

So this has become the after school routine.  Drake loses his shirt (and eventually his pants too) and eats a popsicle.  They deserve it!

[And he's wearing pants because he has to as part of their school dress code.  Cruel?  Yes.]

It was oh so nice having them start school two weeks before me and getting to be a stay at home mom.  I loved getting my work outs in (Ironman is only 12 weeks away!!!), having a clean house, and baking all sorts of yummy after school snacks for them.  And sadly it's come to an end.  This last year might be the death of me, but it's only a year.  And that's not that long, right?

 Oh, and their first day of school also just happened to be our anniversary.

So their first back-to-school night, they got to stay up late at Gigi's while we Benihana'd it up, celebrating 9 years of putting up with each other.

I seriously love this guy!