A Birthday Comes But Once a Year

I’m back! My hiatus from blogging was unintentional, I can assure you. I have had plenty of thoughts bouncing around in my head, as well as thousands (yes, thousands) of new photos bouncing around my laptop. But there has just been no time! And I finally had to stop letting it bother me, promising myself that when there WAS time to blog, I’d catch up, and all would be right in my world once again.

Two weeks ago, our baby girl turned 10 years old, and we celebrated a whole decade of parenting.

Looking back, I don’t know how well we’ve done these first 10 years. I don’t think we’re horrible parents, but you know how it is….Sometimes you witness behavior in your child that freaks you out, and you envision the town gossip 20 years down the road: “Well, Joy and Ryan sure did screw up. They just kind of let their daughter rule their household, and look what happened!”

But then, the pendulum swings back around, and you have a moment where you witness your child’s sheer brilliance, and you think, “Wow, this is the most amazing person on the planet, and God chose me to be her mother.”

And then there’s the reality, which seems to land somewhere between those two extremes.

In any case, how did she grow, from this:

To this?

Oh, we love her so much.

On Ryley’s birthday, Ryan and I both took the day off from work and took her down to Colorado Springs to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, which is absolutely the best zoo. It is one of Ryley’s favorite places to go in Colorado, and she begs to go there every summer. They’ve actually added quite a few features since last time we went, which made it even more fun.

We took the sky ride up the side of the mountain, which allowed us rare views of animals deep in their habitats, like the tigers.

Of course, she fed the giraffes! Her very favorite thing!

Ryley feeds a giraffe on her 10th birthday

And she fed the budgies…

And she saw a moose pee and then drink from the water it just peed in…

We are talking “educational” here, folks!

Kissy faces with primates…

We spent almost four hours at the zoo, which was surprising, as we had only planned on two hours. But we were having so much fun! We arrived at the rhinoceros show right on the tail end of it, but that didn’t stop Ryley from marching right up and asking the zookeepers her plethora of rhino questions. She is very compassionate toward animals. Next time we will bring extra cash and plan to feed the elephants, too. It’s more expensive than the Denver Zoo, but it is worth every penny!

Then, as always, she wanted to drive to the “castle” at the top of the zoo. It’s actually a memorial shrine to Will Rogers, but it is pretty cool!

Do you see her waving??

Then, we were off to a late lunch before heading back home for Ryley’s birthday party at LaserQuest!

Twelve 10-year-olds equaled too many, but I’m glad she has lots of friends! They were a fun and rowdy bunch!

I think she had a very nice birthday!

We are so grateful for Ryley’s life and for the joy she brings us every second of every day. We can’t wait to see what God does in her life in the next 10 years and beyond.