Griffin's Birthday Celebration

Ah, the end of the day and your birthday celebrations. It was a wonderful, wonderful day. I know you are a bit too young to remember, but we feel in all honesty that you had an amazing time today.

For months and months, I debated about what we should do for your first birthday. We were trying to decide between a birthday celebration with family and friends, or just a private celebration with the three of us. Last month, we made our decision to have a private celebration and I think it was the best decision by far. At first, I was worried that we were being a bit selfish by keeping you all to ourselves. But it ended up to be a perfect day, and in my opinion, a perfect first birthday. I wanted a day that all of us would remember. I didn't want to feel the stress and pressure of running around, prepping for a party and not being able to enjoy your day.

So last night, after you went to bed, we hung a birthday banner and blew up a few balloons. I also made a raspberry shortcake for you yesterday, which is to become an annual birthday cake tradition now. Another debate I was having in my head was to get you a fancy cake, or bake one. I am not a baker. By any stretch. But I can make a simple shortcake, and it's one of my personal favorites. I decided against getting you a fancy cake because I wanted to start your birthday's off with traditions that you would remember for the rest of your life. So one of our new traditions will be that I will bake you a shortcake every year for your birthday.

Today, we had two choices of where to take you. We wanted to take you to the zoo in Aldergrove, or Science World. Because we are in the midst of a heat wave, the idea of driving an hour outside Vancouver in a non-air-conditioned car, and sweltering in the sun with the other animals did not sound appealing. So we set off to Science World where it was thankfully air-conditioned. We wanted to take you there for a long time, but never thought there was anything for young babies to do. Well, it would seem that you are a good age to take now and you had a blast. At first, you were quite skeptical (as you generally are in new situations). But by lunch, you were loving it. We played with everything, and they had a wonderful area called Kids Space. That was an unexpected bonus. There is also a dinosaur exhibition that was quite interesting. We took a quick peek at that before we left so as not to scare you (it actually was pretty scary!).

After spending the day there, we headed home to open some presents. You are obsessed with a purple helium balloon that came with a wonderful gift basket from Uncle Amir, Auntie Tabitha and Arden. If I knew you would love the balloon so much, I would have saved some money and bought you some for your birthday! After the presents, we got some takeout sushi where you tried it for the first time and had it for dinner. You had an avocado/mango roll which you managed to get all over your face. And thankfully for us, you seem to like it so this means we can all have Japanese food together. Then it was time for your cake, but by that time, I think you were done. The excitement of the day wore you down, especially with no nap today and you were Mr. Crankypants by cake time. But I managed to sneak some cake into you (first time for cake too) and you loved that also.

We took some pictures and video which I will be uploading soon. It was a wonderful day on so many levels.