Our Memorial Day weekend was quite memorable! We weren't able to attend Anthony's friend Nathan's Texas wedding in March, so he and his new wife Jo'Elda came to stay with us for the weekend so we could get to know her. Some bad weather delayed them, so they pulled in Saturday around noon. We spent Saturday at a festival in Old Town Fort Collins and Anthony's parents had us over for dinner Saturday night. On Sunday, we (along with every other tourist in town!) went for a drive through Estes Park and into Rocky Mountain National Park. Jo'Elda had never been in the mountains before, so we wanted to show her some true Colorado scenery. For someone who has never lived about sea level, she was a trooper. Altitude sickness at 13,000 feet is no joke! There are parts of the drive that are a little scary and make you feel like you're about to veer off into your certain demise. This photo was taken just above the tundra line, but at the summit, there was still like 13 feet of snow. This bag of chips nearly exploded with the change in air pressure...no wonder it can feel hard to breathe up there. It was fun to see what I think was the lake that we snowshoed on in 2011 from above. Our company departed on Monday morning. Since everybody had to return to work on Tuesday (Alaina's real birthday), we celebrated on Monday. I snuck up on her with her big gift while she and Nana were checking out the men's progress on the new swingset. She was very excited about it until she took her first spill, an inevitability when you go from a 12" bike to an 18". She needs a couple more inches to feel secure on this bike, but I wanted to err on the side of too big, since we bought too small for her last time! She asked for Mommy to make her a chocolate cake, a huge compliment to me, since Papa is the best cook in the Dietrich family. I did a little TOO well on this cake a maybe ate half of it by myself. Move on over, Papa! I may have a corner on desserts! Alaina's unique method of blowing out the candles with only a sliver of her lips parted proved somewhat ineffective. I think she chose to do it that was to savor the moment and have more chances to blow them out. She loves blowing out the flame, even if it's just from a lighter. She cut herself a gigantic piece of cake, then asked for rocky road ice cream with extra marshmallows (homegirl knows the right way to eat ice cream!). She only took a nibble, since she had filled up on watermelon (her favorite) at dinner. On Tuesday, she woke up to her requested birthday breakfast of chocolate doughnuts and Lucky Charms (this began her processed food binge...I promise we don't eat like this!). When Connor got out of school, we went to pick up the birthday lunch she'd been asking for for months - a pizza Lunchable. She always asks to go to Chuck E. Cheese's for her birthday, and since we tried a different place last year (she was a great sport, but you could tell she would rather have gone to CEC), I had to humor her. She had great luck, winning jackpot after jackpot, and walked away with 242 tickets after an hour. While she enjoys the games, the whole point of the CEC experience to her is to win tickets to buy little prizes. She picked out dinner (chicken nuggets with honey, ketchup, and fresh mango slices on the side) and a show for the family to watch (My Little Pony). I can't believe my girl is five!