Rj's Celebration of 31 years.

Me:  What do you want to do for your birthday?
Russ:  Absolutely nothing.
Me:  What do you want to eat for your birthday?
Russ:  I do not care.
Me:  Do you want cake, pie, ice cream anything special?
Russ:  Meh.

 I swear,  I'm the freakin birthday queen.  I do not get this ambivalence toward birthday preferences... I mean seriously a whole month/week/day to have the power to dictate what we do, what we eat, what we consumer for dessert.  But I obliged to his desire to not have desires:)  Because that's what he wanted.  I planned NOTHING.  I did post ridiculous and FUN and handsome photos of him for 20 days.  I did enable him to go have real brother time with Will in St. Louis, friend time with good ol' friends from Fairbury days, and more "do whatever you want to do" time.  But I swear this guy is pretty darn easy.  We started this morning with some yummo pancakes and chilling out watching a movie.   Lucky for all of us Russell eventually decided that he wanted to get out of the house today.

So we did our favorite pastime....  hiking.

Aylen was able to hike a bit on his own, which I can't turn my Momma future brain off.  Ohemgee...the hikes we will have with our boys!  the adventures!  the camping!  I can't wait!  We finally got to climb an area we had been admiring for a bit of time now.  It was all going pretty well, until the END.  

Aylen learning why cacti are not good to touch.

Usually when you think of the end it is THE tallest point of the mountain, or just flippin amazing or SOMETHING.  But the end of this was hike was sub par.  I could see it in Russell's eyes.  We had to get to the top of the mountain.  If I know Russell at all, this is the best birthday present.  Going OFF the beaten path, HIKING, finding your way in nature--yes please.  So with a toddler on his shoulders and a baby on my back we found our way down Rabbit Mountain.  A tid nerve-wracking at parts...a little paranoid that I would not only fall and make my baby tumble down with me, but also that I'd land flat on an awesome patch of Cacti that decorated the mountain.  Lucky for all of us we avoided any of those scenarios.  

My reward for conquering the mountain was to go find me some water.  We stopped at this spot in Lyons and it was the perfect end to the perfect day.  Freezing cold water on our feet, amazing sunlight through the trees, and awesome Autumn leaves with the family.

Happy Birthday Russell John. 
Love you like you love Chai right now.

 -Momma