Kara's Birthday Weekend

As I know I have written many times, our kids get a choice on their birthday: a party with friends, a gift, or an outing (when they were little, the outing was frequently Great Wolf Lodge). On Sunday, Kara turned 14 and she chose a gift. 

Her birthday extravaganza started on Friday. She skipped school and we went to the mall to let her pick out Doc Martens boots. She also got some goodies at Bath and Body Works. Then, we went to lunch at her chosen restaurant--Olive Garden. We were going to go to Fun Spot that night, but the forecast wasn't great, so we stayed home.

Trying out the brownie lasagna.

Showing off her new Docs

Saturday, she wanted to go to the library. I took her, Jack, and Luke (Jack drove) to the downtown branch, which is our favorite. While we did that, Thomas took Anna to ice skating. After lunch, the girls, Thomas and I went to Universal Studios. We started on the Studios side and rode Jimmy Fallon. Then, we went to MIB. They shut the ride down right before our turn. We ended up waiting an extra 30ish minutes because someone lost a flip flop and demanded it be retrieved. The worker said that normally if someone loses something they make them wait until the end of the night to get it at lost and found. She said this person must have been very demanding, since they try not to shut down rides, especially MIB, which is 23 years old. It was annoying to wait, but the story made it worthwhile. Can you imagine the level of self-importance that would make you inconvenience hundreds of people to get back a flip flop now versus at the end of the night??? Especially when they sell footwear at the park. Weird! 

We had dinner at Kara's chosen spot, Red Oven Pizzeria in City Walk, one of my favorites. Then, we went to Islands. We rode lots of rides with very little wait including walking directly onto Trolley in the Sky! We left around 8:30. I think the girls would have stayed longer, but Thomas and I were tired! 

Trying out the Mardi Gras cake.

The castle lit up for Gryffindor during the nighttime show.

Caroseussel!

Strike a pose in City Walk

Sunday was Kara's actual birthday. We had donuts for breakfast and spent a lot of the day baking. Kara wanted to make her own cake. I assisted and took care of dish duty. Her theme was "chocolate covered strawberries." She made a strawberry cake from scratch with homemade chocolate buttercream. She put a layer of strawberries in the middle and decorated the cake with chocolate covered strawberries. The individual parts were amazing! But, I am not sure the chocolate frosting complemented the strawberry cake as much as a plain buttercream or strawberry frosting might have (writing this in case we make it again so we remember). Regardless, it was very tasty and she did a fantastic job. I think it is the best buttercream I have ever tasted (espresso powder put it over the top) and the strawberry flavor in the cake was on point. Kara also made the cookie dough for the Valentine's cookies she is going to make for her friends. In between baking, we went for a walk and she played poker with Thomas and Jack.

We had the cake and she opened gifts--a Wicked shirt from Jack and Etsy slime from Anna and Luke. I hope she felt very loved and celebrated during her weekend 'o fun. It is hard to believe she is 14 now. We looked at pictures and read stories from previous birthdays. We feel lucky to have her for our daughter! She also received many many texts from many many friends.