Happy Birthday to you, Dan!

 I wish I would've gotten video of Sienna singing Happy Birthday to her dad.  It was so stinkin' cute.  She's now obsessed with the song and sings it pretty much every single day.   For Dan's bday, he chose a low-key bday dinner at Chili's--the big 3-5!  I'm officially married to an old man :)  Here's just a few pictures of his birthday week.  He milked it and got out of many a diaper changes because it was his "birthday week".  We also had fun celebrating with both of our families.  Sienna and I are so lucky to have such an amazing father and husband.  Love your guts!

 

Having too much fun with the camera

My not-very-good-angry-face since Dan kept taking pictures of me

For his birthday I surprised Dan with tickets to a REAL soccer game.  I told him that I had a work party that night, but I don't think he believed me.  Apparently I'm not a very good liar. Here is Dan looking bored as ever...only he's not bored of the game, just bored of me taking too many pictures! It was such a fun night--good friends, dinner at Smash Burger and a great REAL game!  

 

Dan imitating the Referee. I love his face. 

I'm married to an old man!

Happy late birthday to you, Mr. Dixon! (Daniel Vilas Dixon, that is!) Dan's (34th!) birthday was on September 14th. We had a few days of celebrating--a dinner party with my family, picnic/dutch-oven cobbler American Fork canyon night with his fam, and then a low-key date night with just the two of us. We went to PF Chang's, had an amazing dinner, then had an even-more-amazing dessert, the great wall of chocolate. Seriously, the thing is ginormous. We felt like we were eating forever, and hardly made a dent in it. We also saw 500 Days of Summer. Good flick. Happy birthday to the best husband, father and friend! Love your guts, Dan! I have a few more pics I need to steal from Dan's mom's camera, so I'll post those later.

For the Hanson family birthday dinner, we had one of my favorite meals--a pasta bar. I'm pretty sure I've posted about this before, so I'll just recap. You take your favorite cooked pasta and add all of your favorite pasta toppings. Toss it in a pan with a little olive oil and garlic and heat through, then top with your favorite sauce. It's fun because everyone can make it just how they like it. Then we had pizookie's for dessert. Dan got his own little one, then we made a giant one for everyone else to share. There's nothing better than a ginormous warm chocolately, gooey chocolate chip cookie topped with vanilla bean icecream. Yummmmmm!

I made Dan pose for this one. :)

So what if I'm a month behind...

A hurt back. Crazy work schedule. A sick baby. Dan working a ton. Nasty head hold. Bronchitis. Traveling. "Training" for the triathlon (with a hurt back, a sick baby, being sick...so not nearly as much as I should have). The triathlon. Studying for my LCSW exam. These are all my excuses for not keeping my blog updated. It's not like I'm addicted to blogging, but since I'm using it as a type of journal, I'd love to be better at updating it. I really need to do better, particularly with important events in our lives.

Anyway, it's been about a month since my birthday weekend, so it's definitely past due! Dan and I went up to Park City for the weekend (April 25th-26th). My parents were kind enough to take Sienna for the weekend, so we were kid-free. We planned to take the road bikes and do the bike/run portion of the triathlon (which we had also planned to do the previous weekend when it POURED). Anyway, of course it snowed all day long. It was crazy. I swear the forces were completely against us with this race....but that's for another post! We stayed at the Marriott at the Park City Ski Resort. It was such a fun little get-away--definitely short, but sweet. We shopped at the outlets, ate at great restaurants, worked out (in the gym instead), sat in the hot tub, and just relaxed. I guess if you can't have good weather, then at least we could turn on a fireplace and cuddle up while it was snowing outside. It really was a beautiful snowfall--the kind with the huge flakes...but come on! It was almost May. Enough, already! Since it was in-between seasons, it really was pretty quiet, which was nice. It kind of felt like we had the city to ourselves. We had a great weekend. It was kind of a joint anniversary/my birthday celebration. I still can't believe it's been 4 years since we got married. I am grateful to have married Dan. He's a good man. He is a great friend, and not just to me. I love that he is the kind of guy who really cares about people. I am grateful that he is someone who people rely on and look up to (despite the fact that he's a Democrat!). And he is the BEST dad! Sienna just adores him. There is nothing I love more than to watch them play together. We've had lots of highs and a few hard times, but it's been an amazing 4 years. Here's to many, many more!!! LYG, Dan!

Here we are at dinner at a yummy Italian place on Main Street in Park City. It was so slow there that we took our sweet time and got great service from the waitress. She even hooked us up with a free dessert--a pizookie (which was not nearly as good as the ones from BJ's. Sniff, sniff...) The tables were covered with paper/crayons, so we took advantage and played a couple of games of MASH. I'll admit it's been awhile since I played, but it was definitely a good time. Wentworth Miller (from Prison Break) and I will be very happy, living in our shack with our 2 kids, and driving our audi TT. And Dan and Britney Spears will be very happy hauling their 7 kids around in their 15-passenger scout van. The waitress even made us do a MASH game for her. It was pretty funny. She used all the waiters and then 1 waitress, since there weren't enough guys and of course ended up with the only chick. Good times, good times. You can make fun, but admit it, you want to bust out a good game of MASH right now. I know you do.






P.S. I LOVE artichokes. LOVE them. I need to learn how to cook them. Are they hard?







Here's a few pics from my birthday dinner/party with my family. I got spoiled! My family is the best. And yes, that it a picture of my 91-year-old grandma Tink playing the Wii.