Happy (belated) Birthday to Marin!

Our girl is 6! Pretty exciting stuff. :)
We love you our Marin girl! We are very proud of you and how you are growing up, riding bikes, loosing teeth, reading, writing, and lately wanting to type and send emails! You are growing up so fast it is amazing to think and wonder about all the things that you will be doing by the time you have your next birthday. I feel the need to make a little list...
how about 6 things Marin loves (in no particular order).
1. Oliebollen
2. Playing with her friends
3. Stuffys
4. Going for breakfast dates with her Daddy
5. Going on adventures with her family
6. School
Here she is showing how old she is using her fingers/thumbs, see the thumb on her left hand, it is technically standing up.

We all had a really fun time celebrating her birthday. On the 18th, the day before her birthday we had a party with her friends from school. There were twelve 5/6 years olds in total, but with the help of Michael, Blair, Jemhalyn and of course Ian it went really well. We had mini pizzas, that they made themselves, and carrot sticks and apples slices for a snack. Then it was time for birthday cake, and after that straight out into the back yard for some games. Marin had loads of fun with her friends, the game they enjoyed the most was red-rover-red-rover.
On Thursday, the 19th, her actual birthday we gave her her gifts in the morning and she was very pleased. She loves gifts, giving and receiving, and when there are gifts to open she dosen't like to wait. :) (Any guesses where she get that from? ;) )


Then in the afternoon we hit the road and headed to Jeddah for dinner and to play in one of the many mini amusement "parks", there is one in pretty much every mall. (Auntie) Blair snapped this picture of the birthday girl and I at dinner. :)

The amusement park was lots of fun. The best part was seeing the kids have so much fun.

Marin loved the mini roller-coaster, the river tube and the log flume rides the best. The funniest part of the night was when we all piled into the log flume ride, Ian, Marin, Corban and Jemhalyn went in the log in front and Blair, Michael, Jeriah and I (the 4 of us seated in that order) went in the one behind them. As we climbed the hill to go down the big drop we could see Ian and crew looking back at us with big grins on the faces and a look of anticipation. Once we got to the bottom we knew why. They were laughing and laughing at us, our log weighed more then theirs (due to the size of the people in it) and so Blair being the one in front received a hugs splash of water, and apparently the look on her face was awesome. It also needs to be mentioned that since she was wearing an abaya all the water pooled in her lap as it was like she had a big bowl on her lap.
Fun times and good memories. It was a great day hanging out as a family celebrating our special girls birthday!

Happy 6th Birthday Marin!