Celee is 10!

     I can't believe my second daughter is 10!  When did this happen?!  Celee did indeed turn 10 though, and as is our custom, we gave here a trip of her choosing with just me for the weekend as her gift.  (Thankfully, she chose somewhere within driving distance!)
     On her actual birthday, we happened to be having History Club at our house, so we also had a little celebration for Celee's birthday then.  She wanted a cannoli cake for her cake this year.  We made the cake, filling and frosting, and then I found the cannolies at a little specialty grocery/bakery in Glyndon.  I was fretting a little about the cannoli's because I knew I couldn't make them right and most places you have to place an order to get them.  But Thank You Santoni's!  You have cannolies ready to go in the case!

     Celee did get a gift from her sisters, and the cards from family to open on Thursday morning.  She is so funny!  I love how excited and easy to please she is with gifts!  She really loves just about anything she ever receives - even the candy bars that Gwyn and Lyla picked out for her.  I'd love a candy bar too!

   
     I love hanging up the Happy Birthday sign each year.  I printed it out, colored it, and hung it for Celee when she turned 3 and somehow this paper sign has made it this far!  On the other kiddos birthdays we just leave off the Celee part.  :)

     I must say that it took Celee around 8 or 9 huffs to blow out all the candles.  Gwyn and Lyla were then teasing her that she was going to have 9 children when she grows up!  She finally got all 10 out though.

     Because Celee's birthday is in the winter, many of the things she might have chosen had the weather been warm were out.  But she chose to go to Massanutten Resort, which has an indoor waterpark and a snow tubing hill.  It's also a ski resort, but she wanted to go tubing.  We didn't actually stay at the resort, but in the nearby city of Harrisonburg, VA which was only a 15 minute drive away.
     The water park was super fun.  I don't have too many pictures because we were too busy riding the slides and playing to take pictures. Our favorite things there were the 3 slides that you can ride double tubes down.  It is a testament to how much I love Celee that I lost count of how many time we climbed the 4 flights of stairs to get to the top and ride the slides. I lost count after 20.   I did get some pictures of Celee trying the surfing simulator.  She did pretty good!  The life guards shout out to the kids (and adults) what to do and Celee was doing really good until the guard wanted her to throw the board forward and then catch it.  That's when the "wave" took her.

     I just had to take a picture of Celee eating this brownie.  It was so thick and chewy that it got stuck in the roof of her mouth.  We were laughing so hard because she kept trying and trying to get it out and it just wouldn't.  :)  Again, she is so funny because she kept saying she couldn't wait to tell Gwyn and Lyla how much junk food we were eating, and for dinner too!

     The next day we headed out for the tubing hill.  We had to wait a little bit for our time slot, so Celee got to do the kid's ropes course in the meanwhile.  She was the only one there so she got to go twice and the guy at the end let her go back and forth on the zip line a few times.

     The tubing hill was great!  There is a long escalator that takes you and the tube up.  Then there were about 5-6 lanes open a the top.  It was snowing by this time and the lanes were getting too fast. (which made it even more fun)  The guys that work there ended up putting mats out at the bottom to try to slow people down.  But we figured out that if you rode in the 4th lane, you could get some air on the last bump before the bottom.  It was crazy cold though and we headed inside twice to warm up before going back out to tube again.  Finally the cold got to us and Celee was done.

     We headed home in the crazy winter storm that came through on that Sunday.  We had some scary moments.  The car skidded around and ended up backwards twice even though I was only going 30 mph.  Thankfully no one else happened to be on the road where we were when that happened both times and no damage was done.  Celee passed the time watching Planes, which her aunt had given her for her birthday.  She was either doing that or praying out loud with me while we skidded.  :)  We did make it home, after getting stuck on a road about 2 mi. from home. Only after finally backing down the hill to try again after the plow came by did we make it.

     I'm so glad that I got to spend this special time with Celee.  She is such a funny, smart, creative, thoughtful, and beautiful girl!  I'm so proud of her!  She has really worked hard this year overcoming some of her math anxiety.  She is also my most introspective daughter.    She often appears very serious and is in deep thought over something that has caught her attention.  She works hard and is very helpful to me around the house, or in the yard, or with whatever I happen to be doing.  We love you Celee!  Happy 10th Birthday!