Dad's 45th birthday

We're glad dad was born!  We were excited to celebrated Bri's birth, so we celebrated real quick before he had to go to work.  The kids as usual made things that they gave him.  Notes from Rhea, certificates for redemption from Thomas, pottery from Savannah, and I gave him artisan pottery from Portugal that he picked out on our Spring break trip there a few weeks prior.

 I forgot to buy the birthday candles for the cake, so we improvised.  ;)

 Rhea made the happy birthday sign.  :)

For dinner, I took Briant out to a Georgian restaurant, Alibaba in Jurmala, the nearby beach city.  This was a first for us, so we took the waiter's recommendations for food.  I just got a Greek salad, but Briant tried the dumplings and cheese bread.  The food was very good.

After eating, we took a nice quiet walk on the beach and talked to the ducks.  The Baltic beaches are so calm compared to the Californian coast where I grew up.  So pretty!

Talking to my dad and Becky after they called to wish him a Happy birthday!

 Along the trails leading to the beach, we discovered things we've never seen before:  A "bug house."

 And then a little ways away from that, was this pile of logs with these holes punched into them.  We were trying to figure out the reasons for this, but still need to do some research!

On Briant's birthday weekend, our friends from A-100, Brianna and Estephan (and their kids) came to visit us from Poland where the are posted.  It was a nice birthday present to be able to see our friends that we hadn't seen for a few years.  And it's nice that we don't live too far away.

Thomas and Isaac had a lot of fun playing together, while the girls loved spoiling Coco with attention.

It was great catching up and laughing with them as usual.  My kids always have a hard time saying goodbye to guests, and this was no exception.  They had adopted "cousins" for a few days and were sad to see them go. We hope to visit them in Poland!