The past three days have been some of the best I've had in a long time!  Kent got home early friday evening and left tonight.  For some reason they got Columbus day off (another great military benefit- lots of holidays off!) and so he made it home for the looong weekend :)

To make things even better- it was his birthday yesterday!!  We've been celebrating all weekend, really. 

Saturday morning Kent took the kiddos and I ran a ten mile race with a friend. The weather has been much warmer than usual for this late- but it made for a great early morning race!

Saturday night we went to the 'Elephant Bar and Grill' kidless. It is one of our favorite places.

Sunday we decorated the house and woke up Kent to open presents.  I realize the wrapping paper is Christmas.  I am morally opposed to anything Christmas related (music, decorations, etc) pre-Halloween- but when your ox is in the mire- it's in the mire. I couldn't even find newspaper to use.

Don't mess with evolution (or kent).

Zeb and Ike are taking a ride on the 'birthday bull'.  Kent rode them around the house while they unsuccesfully attempted to blow party horns.

For breakfast we did nutella, cream cheese filling, and strawberry filled blini (crepes).  Ike loved it.

After breakfast we decided to head to the park but ended up at Kent's school.  There are lots of cool tunnels and the boys love to send race cars down the hallways.

and then Ike had a major meltdown. I'm sure it's because I posted last week that he had been almost tantrum free. The tantrum frequency is suddenly rising rapidly.

Here's Zeb 'really really sad' because Ike won't share his race cars.  Ike being required to share is what brought on the tantrum.

There's a big gully or ditch (or something) at the school that the kiddos loved throwing rocks into.

After church we had a great dinner and texas sheet cake for dessert. It was such a good day.

I'm so glad that Kent was rotating in Dayton for this month and not in Texas! We all totally lucked out that he could come home.  It was such a great weekend. I almost felt like it was my birthday. Married birthdays are the best because we both benefit!!