Happy Birthday Russell!

We celebrated Russell's 28th birthday yesterday. (Man and I thought I was old! He's closer to 30 than I am!) We had a lot of fun with his family swimming at Sand Cove and then later having a really yummy dinner and cake.

After I got off work and fed Colby, we headed up to Sand Cove with Russell's family. Jen and Rick and their boys just moved back to Southern Utah and we are so excited to have them here. They lived in Laramie, WY for about a year and a half and then moved to Sacramento, CA for the last 6 months. They are now living in New Harmony on Grandma and Grandpa Maxwell's property. It is fun to have them back and Emily loves playing with Paul and Alex.

Here we are at Sand Cove having a blast in the cool water. It was definitely a nice way to get out of the heat.

Emily had a blast playing in the water with Russell and she especially loved riding in the canoe around the lake. Because it was a little heavy in the back and the wind was blowing against it, the canoe was hard to paddle back to shore. The raised front acted like a sail and kept turning the canoe in circles as it was paddled against the wind. Finally Russell figured out that if he paddled the canoe backwards he could get a lot further. He and Emily eventually made it back to shore.

Colby loved helping Grandpa blow up the tubes. He liked feeling the vibrations of the air pump on his belly.

Here is a cute picture of all of the Farnsworth cousins and their parents. This is Russell's older sister, Jen, and her two boys, Paul and Alex. Paul is 5 and Alex is 2 weeks older than Emily so he will be 3 in September. It is fun to have them around.

While Emily and Russell were floating in the water, Colby and I were chilling on the shore just watching them. Colby liked being in the shade playing with his toys. He loved being outside looking at everything there is to see.

Colby wasn't too sure about the cool water though. It kind of took his breath away when Russell put him in the water. Emily liked splashing Colby but Colby didn't like it. After eating, Colby fell asleep so I laid him in his playpen near the water. The next thing I know I hear Colby crying because Emily had kicked water up into his playpen and woke him up with a cold splash. He was not happy after that but we had a good laugh.

After playing for a while at Sand Cove, we headed home to make Russell's birthday dinner. We made spaghetti with homemade meatballs stuffed with cheese. It was so good! We had Russell's family over for dinner too. I also made Russell a very yummy Oreo ice cream cake. It was sooooooooooooo goooooooood!!! The only thing that would have made it better was if our freezer would have froze it harder so that it wouldn't have been so melty. But still very good!

Here is the birthday boy cutting and serving his cake. Of course everyone loved it. For my secret recipe for this yummy cake, check out Made in a Jiff by Tiff.

After dinner we played a good game of Rage and just enjoyed every one's company. For his birthday, I got Russell tickets to Transformers 3 at the Zion Canyon Theater. It will be awesome to see the movie on an IMAX screen in 3D! So before we go to this movie, we are going to have a Transformers marathon and watch the other two movies. I also got him a dinner for two at a restaurant of his choice in Springdale before the movie. It will be nice to go on a real date for a change without the kids. We are actually going on this date on our anniversary coming up next week. I can't wait.

Happy Birthday, Russell!!