Cassi Raye's Birthday

I can't believe she turned 10 already and it's hard to imagine it's been more than a month since she did.

Wren and family found this fantastic hat at, well I suppose you can kind of guess where they found it. Isn't it great? I told her I wanted to share it come my birthday.

The birthday fairy did come to visit her; 10 isn't all that old you know. She was very excited and as always that fairy knows just what will bring smiles to everyone.

Unfortunately Scott was out of town but he was originally due to come home on her actual birthday and we were going to pick him up in the big city. When the plans were changed we decided to go forth with our original idea and visit Anchorage anyway. It's always a fun trip and I thought it might take Cassi's mind off the fact that her Dad was going to be away working longer than expected.

We made it to Anchorage just in time to have a late lunch at Benihana. It's our new favorite place to eat. Since we arrived at 1:45 (they close from 2:00 - 5:00) we were the only people in the restaurant. Our waiter's name was Happy; fitting don't-cha think?

He was really great to Cassi and performed mesmerizing culinary tricks for her.
It made everyone else really happy too.

Even Cali loved the food which is hard to imagine these days.

When dinner was done the staff brought out a little ice cream Buddha thing for Cassi. He was cool.

After filling our bellies we headed out to go shopping. We had lots of gift cards saved up to use. We meandered through the bookstore, added a little flare to our clothes closet and even got new coats; a special surprise from Daddy.

When the shopping was done, we decided to call Wren and have him commemorate the day with a grand finale. We went to a nearby bistro and the kids tried calamari for the first time. Cassi will always remember turning 10 now I think. After calamari we had some beautiful desserts that we passed around. YUM! (And in case you're wondering; YES, they liked the calamari!)


It was a fabulous day that could have only been better if Daddy had made it home. Since he didn't, we made plans to go back. And next time we were hitting up H2Oasis for some water logged excitement.