Happy Birthday!

That's right everyone, we celebrated someone's birthday this week! Little Sam turned 1 year old on Wednesday! So in honor of her momentous milestone I changed our blog to a jelly bean theme. Kinda fun isn't it? I'll be honest with you, celebrating a 1 year old's birthday without any family or friends to do it with is a little anti-climactic. As you know, Alex has been in Utah visiting friends and family for the past little while leaving only Mesia and I to celebrate with Sam. When you have 2 adults beat tired at the end of a long day and a 1 year old baby who has no idea what a birthday is, it makes for a short party. But, naturally we loved every minute of our little party.

The day started like most do. Mesia went to work and I got Sam ready for her big day. Then after a wonderful oatmeal breakfast, some cheerios and a little play time, Sam went down for a nap. I took a seat on the coach and began reading when I slowly drifted off into a wonderful and delightfully dreamy nap. In the middle of my much needed slumber the doorbell rang and the dogs went crazy, waking both Sam and I. Half coherent I answered the door to meet some little old lady holding a basket that was larger than the top half of her body.
"This is for Sam"
I took the basket and said thank you, not knowing who she was and then shut the door on her.
Sometimes it takes a few minutes to totally wake up and once I was completely alert, I started wondering who the sweet little woman was. Was it someone from church? No, who at our church knows Sam's birthday?
I put the basket of "Happy Birthday" sugar cookies on the table and looked at the attached card.
Turns out the basket of cookies (all were the size of Sam's head) were a special delivery from big sister Alex back in Utah! What a good big sister!

After that little surprise Sam and I had a pretty typical day. It wasn't until Mom got home that things got really off the hook!

After picking Mom up from the bus station I ran to the store to get some cupcakes, a candle, and salad dressing (crazy that Sam likes a lime vinaigrette on her cupcakes). After a quick dinner Mesia and I set Sam in her high chair and celebrated one year of life with our little girl. Here's the footage:









Here's Sam loving every minute of her cake.

And look at the manners we instill in our child--always sharing.

And after downing the delicious cupcake, the carbs metabolized and the sugar crash hit.

So, after that we just kinda went to bed. As I said, it's a little short of excitement without friends and family.

And how can we mention Sam's birthday without addressing Father's Day? A year ago Sam was teasing me with false alarms on this holiday. I had a great Father's Day in the midst of our little company. Sometimes relaxation and time with family is all it takes to make the perfect holiday. I of course missed Alex's company. Father's Day this year was a little different without her around. For the past 4 years she's been the one to make it a big deal. Oh well, it was as good as it could be without her.

Mesia had a pretty mellow week. She worked an extra day of overtime to bring a little more bread. She sacrifices much and works hard for our little family. One day when I'm done with law school, after working at a firm, after my stint as a state attorney general, and during my campaign for a U.S. Senate seat, she may look back at all her sacrifices and hard work for our family and say to the secret service agent standing next to her, "It was all worth it!"

With Alex being in Utah for a little while, I don't have much to write about regarding her. The telegrams we get from her every now and then indicate she is having fun and doing well. We are jealous of her little voyage--maybe one day we can all go back and visit.

A note of progress before I sign off for the week: I did indeed finish Jesus the Christ. The book is as thick as a brick and the material is as heavy as one too. After 2 previous failed attempts I am proud to say I got through it with probably a 95% comprehension of it all. Within all the information I found about 5 or 6 things which really fascinated me about the Savior or gave me a new perspective on things. If anyone, regardless of religion, wants to better understand the man, his life and his mission I highly encourage you to read this. Guaranteed you will learn more about him and appreciate the research that went into this piece of work.

Mesia also finished a book called Wrongful Death. This is a fun little legal thriller about a widow of a fallen Iraq soldier who wants to sue the government for the wrongful death of her husband, going on a hunch that he died in action not related to his active duty assignment. The widow and her attorney run into the "Faris Doctrine" which basically precludes any soldier or family member to sue the government for military happenings. She loved it and is now on her next book Lone Survivor, the true story of a Navy Seal operation in Pakistan in 2005 in which all but one of the team were killed. The book is written by the sole survivor. I have moved onto The Overton Window. Reviews will be sure to come.

One more thing before I go. I think I fixed the problem that people were having when they tried to leave comments. You should be able to leave comments now if you don't have a google account. If you'd like to leave a comment just click "comments" at the bottom of the post and write your comment in the text box. In the drop down box labeled "comment as:" select the "Name/URL" option and just write your name in the "name" field. You don't need to fill in the "URL" space. After that just type in the security word and BAM you are done!


Hope you all had a great week and we hope the dads had a great Father's Day!

Take Care