All the pictures for Spencer's 8th

I went to bed on the night of my birthday around midnight.  I had responded to all of my birthday wall posts and most of the messages within my posts for the day.  When I got up a little more than 7 hours later I was once again bombarded.  I'm not complaining or saying that this is a problem.  Quite the opposite, really.  It feels really good to be popular for 24 hours.  But notifications drive me bonkers and it's hard enough to clear them when they come in slowly, let alone when they come in one per minute.

Spencer had been begging us since Michael's birthday to let him get a s'mores frappuccino for his birthday.  We had told him he could have one but that it had to be a small and it had to be a decaf.   He also wanted donuts for breakfast and he had previously stated that it was OK to eat them in the room.

Spencer and I hung out in the room while Michael and Elliott went out to get coffee and donuts.  

When they returned, with a non-decaf, non-s'mores frappuccino I just had to shake my head at Michael and told him he was responsible for the caffeine fall out that was bound to happen.

The donuts were superb.  I had researched the best places within a 15 mile radius.  I'm once again off all sugar, grains and dairy until November and just looking at this picture makes me regret my willpower.

After breakfast we headed back to the beach.  We went to the same beach as the day before and actually parked in the exact same spot again.

Elliott was a little sassy on the way.

I wanted pictures of 8 year old Spencer in the ocean.  It's amazing to me that he's now a good three years in to actually remembering his birthdays.  I can remember my 5th birthday and on, so I'm just assuming that he is the same.

I wasn't totally exclusive.  I got some pictures of Elliott too.

And Michael too.

But it was no longer my birthday so nobody even considered taking my picture.

I had to specifically ask Michael to take these so that I could do a side-by-side comparison to when we were on the beach last summer.

We're even wearing the same shirts!

After a long day at the beach we headed back to the hotel so we could rest and get ready for dinner.  Spencer was complaining that he didn't feel good so I told him he needed to take a shower and drink some water while he rested in bed.  He did all of that, but first he threw up in the toilet for five minutes.  Yeah.  Caffeine, junk food, beach, ocean and a day in the sun.  But we'll mostly blame the caffeine (Michael!). 

I was really afraid that we weren't going to be able to go out to the restaurant he had picked and that his whole birthday was going to be ruined, but within 30 minutes he felt back to himself.

Family pictures with the timer.

On the way to dinner we stopped by the ocean to take Spencer's 8 year pictures.  I just have a little automatic camera and sometimes it's very frustrating that I don't know how to deal with issues like lighting and lenses to get a good shot.

The sun and the water were in tricky locations to get a good picture.  But we played around with it a little.

Did I mention that I had to iron on the "8" patch in the hotel room on my birthday because I totally forgot that I needed to make a shirt until we were packing for the trip?  I should probably make Elliott's "4" shirt this weekend while it's on my mind.

Official

8 years

And then, yes, I brought the blocks from home.

Michael had already warned me that he wasn't going into the water to retrieve the blocks if they fell so we had to be very careful.  Particularly because it was a little breezy.

This would have been perfect, but I cut off the damn bottom block.

Official

Blocks

8 years

Spencer had requested Italian food for his birthday dinner, so we went to Little Italy in the gas lamp district.  It doesn't get much more authentic than that.

The restaurant that he picked had great reviews for being delicious and kid friendly.  People also said it had nice decor.  What was never mentioned, in ANY review, is that the building didn't have air conditioning!

Michael dropped us off and then went to go park the car and he got lost walking from the parking lot (in his defense, it was a few blocks away, not right there by the restaurant) so he was already overheated to begin with.

Sorry about the poor picture quality.  The restaurant was really dark and I didn't want to use the flash and bother all the other diners.  But I wasn't going to not take pictures.  That would just be insane.

I did OK to begin with.  I was warm, but not uncomfortably so.  But after two glasses of wine and a plate of fettuccine bolognese I was drenched.  Why did I bother to blow dry my hair?

We ordered cheesecake and tiramisu for dessert, not knowing that a free cannoli is given to birthday celebrators, so we ended up with a birthday dessert buffet.

After dinner we walked around the gas lamp area down by the ocean.  I wish the quality of this picture was better because it might be one of my most favorite pictures ever.

There was an awesome park with all sorts of climbing equipment where we let the kids play for about 30 minutes.  I think it must have been designed by occupational and physical therapists.

And just like that, the day and Spencer's 8th birthdays were over.  Everybody crashed that night and was asleep in record time.  The jet powered fan helped too.