Catching Up

There's been a lot going on in the Rothnie household the past few weeks. To start with, Mark celebrated his 45th birthday on August 23rd.

Forty-five.
And not forty-six.
Which is what I said the day before his birthday when he said, "I can't believe I'm turning forty-five."
Me: "No, it's forty-six."
Mark: Stare of disbelief and anger.
Me: "Isn't it?"
Mark: "It's forty-five."
I had to stop a second and do the math.
Oops!

Anyway, I built him this cake:














Which he seemed pretty pleased with:



















And here's our Catri. She got braces this year and started 9th grade. Our little Catri is growing up! Sniff, sniff ...
She's in band at school and has got a hectic schedule right now (with football season and all). She's staying with us for about 3 weeks and since we don't live in her school district, we're having to drive her to school every morning and pick her up every afternoon/evening. With band practice and gymnastics, it's a CRAZY schedule, but we're making it work.









Gwennan Grace started eating cereal (aka "solids") about a week ago. It's been a learning experience for us both. Here she is after one of her first meals. A little messy, but apparently still pretty happy.



















On Labor Day weekend we went mountain biking with the Spoelstras, the Sims, and the Hunters up at Ft. Yargo State Park. We had a lot of fun, despite the fact that we hit UGA football traffic coming and going, and that my bike had a lot of problems.
Still, we biked, we picnicked and we swam in the lake and had a blast. We girls were all very proud of ourselves in our bike gear, out on the trails. We felt pretty tough.

The Biker Chicks:














Here are the guys, reviewing the map while the girls were busy talking about how pretty Bevin's bike was with the flowers and how cool Shauna's pink helmet was. We were TOUGH, I tell ya.



















And here's my cute husband, trying to fix my bike:



















Also on Labor Day weekend our good friend Roger was in town from Cali. It was good to see ol' Rogelio. He mixed up some mean margaritas for us that day. I think they were the meanest to him, though. Eh, Roger? How many fingers am I holding up?
Don't worry, he hadn't started drinking when he was holding Gwennan for this picture.


















Last Friday night we went to one of Catri's high school football games, mainly to see her play in the marching band. We took Gwennan, although I was nervous how she would react to all the noise and such. She was pretty wide-eyed at all the excitement and people yelling, but she mainly just sat there and said, "Gaa gaa gaa" the whole time. (See previous post of Gwennan's old man imitation.)





























On Saturday night Mark and I went on a date. Mark loves to listen to solopianoradio.com and so for his birthday I gave him tickets to a concert put on by some of the pianists he hears on that station. It was a really wonderful evening. We got dressed up, went to a nice dinner, and then listened to some beautiful music for a few hours. It's been quite a while since he and I did anything romantic like that and it was really good for us. It helped me remember why I fell in love with him in the first place.