Adam's Golden Birthday!

We spent a few weeks celebrating Adam turning 29 on the 29th 

(or in the words of a nameless family member - "He's turning 29 on his 29th Birthday!")

and who doesn't love to celebrate their birthday multiple times?! 

We started out a week before his birthday with a fun outing to Balboa Park in San Diego for "Mud Fest" in the Spanish Village. I love the Spanish Village! It is one of the cutest features of Balboa park and my husband loves clay/ pottery so this was basically the perfect outing for us!

Upon arriving we saw a group of people throwing pots with brown paper bags over their heads. We watched for a while and figured out that we were watching the amateur "blind pot throwing" competition.

Adam went to sign up and all that was left the the "expert" round. He figured since he had done it for about 3 years he was good enough and could join the last heat. So he got a bag, drew a face and started prepping his clay...

He had this at one point, but got an air bubble ...

... and ended up with this!

Oh well, not bad right? I mean he was throwing a pot with out using his eyes, right? Well, let me just show you a few of the other "experts"

Uh, yeah, Adam probably should have been in the amateur round - oh well - he had fun getting his hands dirty anyway!

We spent the rest of the afternoon wondering the park.

Looking at fountains

Walking over giant bridges

And looking at beautiful plants.

And then on the way home Adam picked Indian food for his "Birthday dinner" (which was really fabulous - check out the blue peacock!) and my Mom watched Bennett which was really nice so we just got to enjoy the yummy food and Bollywood videos all to our self :)

Then we took about a week's break from celebrating Adam (you know, apart from the everyday run of the mill celebrating of Adam that goes on all the time) and resumed celebrating the next Saturday on his actual birthday! Oh well actually, now that I think about it (and look at my pictures) we did sort of celebrate the day after "Mud Fest" too.  It was Pentecost, so we all wore red to church

 and then took Bennett to the duck pond for the first time

(But that's not really celebrating Adam, now is it - oh well! )

Back to the golden birthday - on the morning of we went to the Temecula farmers market and then just kind of spent the day together doing stuff around town (playing at the park and such). It was a very lovely and relaxing family day.

In the evening we went to Stefanie and Jonnie's wedding. Yeah, I know, kind of random to go to a wedding on your golden birthday but we knew a bunch of people who were going to be there and we decided it would be fun to hang out with them all at a beautiful location.

Bennett and Becky getting some quality time in before the big move (more on that later)

Cute little fun touches were all over the wedding

But the one thing we (Adam mostly) loved about the wedding was that on each table there were these little wooden mind games to play with! Adam spent the whole time smoke'n people as they tried to put them together. He would just laugh and say, "You know I had to do these sort of things as a child to get into Mensa" (I may be exaggerating just a bit as to what he was saying)

It was a great evening, we had In-n-Out for dinner and had a great time with our friends (except for the dancing, we apparently weren't hipster enough to enjoy the dancing. oh well, not our wedding)

Congrats guys on the start of your life together!

But wait! The celebrating of Adam isn't over yet!

The next day, the Howley side of the family celebrated Adam! We had a great afternoon of swimming, tri-tip tacos (that were fabulous by the way) and family walk around the block. Then we all watched a movie together that Adam got to pick (he picked Invictus, it was really good!) and had pie - Chocolate silk and Lemon Cream Cheese... nothing better!

Then the next day, we finished up celebrating Adam with a breakfast date to Richie's Diner with Adam's Mom. Bennett broke his crayon in half and was being so cute trying to put it back together! I pulled my camera out quick - but I missed it - dang!

Breakfast was followed by a trip to Home Depot to buy his new birthday grill!!!

 This is the first thing he ever cooked on his grill - but that's a different story - more to come on that later!
(It is so nice to have a grill - I feel like our cooking options have totally opened up! It's fabulous!)

Happy Birthday Adam - I'm glad you are now Golden! Enjoy your year!!!  

(because next year, you're 30! AHHH!!!)