Ryan turns 30, and becomes a man.

Okay, so he was already a man. But still, turning 30 seems like a pivotal point in life.

So for Ryan's 30th I wanted to give him something special. I took the idea from our friend Lizzy and secretly got in touch with all of our family and Ryan's friends to have them write notes to Ryan for his birthday. They were mostly about what they liked about Ryan or memories they shared. I then gathered them all and put together a little book including pictures of the contributors. It turned out great! Ryan really loved reading what everyone had to say. Thank you again to all who contributed!Grant's favorite part of the birthday was helping Ryan unwrap this gift. I knew Grant would want to help so I wrapped Ryan's book inside of 3 other wrapped boxes, to stretch out the fun.

Instead of a birthday cake Ryan opted for a tray of huge cinnamon rolls all for himself. I obliged, being caked-out myself. He also took a plate of peanut butter bars to school with him on his birthday, so I think he made out pretty well. Both of these were supposed to go onto the food blog but I forgot to take pictures and what's a food post without good pictures?

Since we are training for our 1/2 marathon we were due to run 8 miles on his birthday, but it was unseasonably cold and windy and we just didn't feel like running. Instead we took advantage of Chick-fil-A's coupons and got a mostly free dinner and then headed over to COSI kid's museum and had fun playing without the kids. On Saturday, Ryan was able to go to a shooting range with several of his co-residents and brought back a target with all 15 shots from a 45 pistol right on the bulls-eye. I guess this shouldn't be a surprise since Ryan once took out a running rock-chuck with one shot from the passenger window of a speeding pickup truck. (Don't tell the police. Ryan later informed me that it's actually illegal to fire a weapon from a moving vehicle.) These just must be skills you pick up growing up in rural Idaho.

Another birthday surprise was we got a call from some raffle we had entered to win a car. We didn't win the car but the travel company that put in on asked us to come listen to their sales pitch for an hour and in exchange they would give us a free cruise for two including airfare. We went and listened (didn't buy but may have if we had money) and now Ryan and I get to go on a free cruise to the Bahamas in the next year. Now that's a nice birthday gift!

"Good day to you, sir!"
(His hat is actually the box that normally holds our series of Narnia books. Good times.)