April 26 is a very special day.

I always felt a little sorry for Jill having to share a birthday with Josh. When Josh was put in the same room as presents, there wasn't any chance of her not being utterly upstaged.

One of the best moments in Joshie birthday party history occurred at one of these present-opening events. I'm sure we'd all picked out great presents: the latest video games for Nintendo 64, whatever new releases Disney had put out, and a huge stack of Power Ranger action figures. But nothing could compare to the 25 $1 bills my Grandma Jepperson put into a card.

It was nothing short of genius. Josh hated opening cards. He'd only do it when mom asked, and even then with an annoyed grunting sigh. If the card held nothing but words, he wasn't shy about showing disapproval by tossing the card aside and then going for the biggest present on the pile.

Then he opened Grandma Jepperson's card and saw a giant pile of green. "MONEY! MONEYMONEYMONEYMONEYMONEY!" he yelled as he fanned the bills out in his hands and bounced up and down while maintaining his indian-style stance in the middle of the family room floor. "MY MONEY! MINE! MINE!" he exclaimed, kissing the bills several times and throwing them in the air.

After that, Jill's opening of a stack of Anita Stansfield novels and some Old Navy shirts was somewhat anticlimactic. She was always a good sport, though. I imagine that even with the upstaging, sharing a birthday with Josh still must have been a lot of fun.

I can't believe Josh would have been 22 today. But even at 22, I think he'd still be just as excited about a stack of $1 bills, although perhaps not so willing to settle for only 25 of them. One thing's for sure. I wouldn't have spent the day at home in jeans and a T-shirt working in the yard and then reading Jasper Fforde with a pot of tea. Everything would have been put on hold in honor of the Joshie birthday extravaganza. I think I would have gotten him a DVD of Enchanted to see him roll his eyes, and then pulled out the real present. I can't help thinking he would be VERY into Transformers.

Happy birthday, Josh!

And Jill, even now without the present-opening theatrics to compete with, your special day still manages to be overshadowed by memories of Josh. You continue to be a good sport. Thanks for being born, having the patience and foresight to stick with Jer when he still had A LOT of growing up to do, and bringing Kenzie, Madi, and Molly into our lives.

I know that yet another cloud hung over you today as you grieve for your friend Rich's death, but I hope you know the difference you've made in all of our lives, and I hope that in spite of what you're going through, you managed to still have a good birthday, even if not the happiest of birthdays. You deserve it!

Happy birthday, Jill!

Pruning Party!

Last Saturday, we managed to get three of our four apple trees pruned. We would never have been able to do it without the help of two sets of parents and a brother and sister! Here is an examle of what we managed to get done:

Before:

After:

Mom and I planted some raspberries and strawberries. We had to put a fence around the patch to keep the dogs out.

Dad and Jeff noticed the dead branch trapped in the tree and were determined to get it out. It became an obsession until they finally succeeded.
The dogs had good times, too. Daisy (Day-Z?) came over to spend the day. During lunch, they had to be contained in the dog run, but the rest of the day, they ran around and played.

The adults had A LOT of fun with the wood chipper we bought. It really helped. We bagged up about 12 large bags of chipped apple tree branches. Jeff ended up with a battle wound. I think the apple tree was fighting back...

A Monday Appointment for Thursday

Little Thursday got spayed on Monday. Because we adopted her from Furburbia in Park City, the vets they work through are all in Park City and Salt Lake. We made the appointment for one of Al's days off and I got a sub for the day. Of course, it snowed like crazy, making the drive in the mountains anything but relaxing. Add to that Thursday's sudden proneness to car sickness and you've got one irritating morning!

We dropped her off just after nine a.m. and pickup was at four p.m. Al and I went to walmart to buy shoptowels, carpet cleaner, and air freshener and cleaned out the car in the parking lot in a snowstorm. After that, we got breakfast and hit the outlet mall.

We got Thursday home without much incident, but the anesthesia continued to make her nauseous through Tuesday. The really difficult thing is her obsession with her stitches. We put a shirt on her:

As you can see, we had to tie it on. She managed to chew through the collar, so Al and I bought her a made-for-dogs shirt.

It's cute, but it doesn't go low enough to cover the sutures. Fortunately, she's starting to ignore them now. She's back to her old self and ready to play with Daisy when Jeff and Ashley come over for the pruning party on Saturday!

Dominance

We found a good deal on a giant dog pillow. It was intended for Trillian, since she outgrew the one we bought when we got her. Bear has decided that he likes it.

Then, we let the dogs in:

Don't worry, I took mercy on the cat right after I turned the camera off. He retreated to the LoveSac in the living room, where the dogs can't go. The dogs found a place to relax, but, as you can see, they don't necessarily relax where we mean for them to.

Fortunately, they sorted things out eventually:

And Continuing the Trend...

In a couple of hours, it will be midnight here in Utah. In three hours, it will be midnight in California. At that point, it will be Sunday, April 6, and Dave's birthday. There are a lot of reasons to love Dave, but in the end, it's all about the video game hook-up.

Ok, so we'd still love you even if you hadn't turned Ang into a Sims-a-holic and provided Al with countless hours of tackling and racecar driving madness. We wish we could spend more time with you, so imagine us there at your birthday party!

Happy Birthday, Dave!

31...Really?

Today is Al's big day. We're both working. Al will be home around 5:15, I have my night class until 7:30, but I'm going to sneak out early. We've made dinner plans at Famous Dave's for 7:00. Anticlimactic, I'm sure, but it will be a fun night. Both sets of parents will be coming, Jeff has a test, but Ashley may join us, too. Geez, it's a big season for birthdays!