The Big 13

I think I've delayed this post because it's just so hard to believe that Rachel is actually a teenager. A brief conversation with her, however, quickly brings you back to reality.

Some years back in an effort to simplify life, we decided that our children would only have "friend" birthday parties on even years. So it came as a very big surprise, when we threw her a surprise birthday party to celebrate her entry into the teen years. We almost killed Nathan the night before. During dinner in San Francisco (as he sat right next to his sister) he declared, "Rachel's friends don't appreciate me. Do I have to be home during her party?" I almost choked on my food. Luckily, Rachel just blazed him with one of her most scornful gazes and replied, "I'm not having a party this year" with a tone that added "stupid". My wonderful friend Anita had Rachel over in the morning to ride horses while Sammie and Nathan helped me throw up decorations.

After Rachel's arrival we played a few fun games, (She posted pictures of those on her blog.), snacked a bit, and then set out on a scavenger hunt. Rachel pulled two names out of a bucket to comprise her team. Steve drove them while the other 3 girls came with me. Each team was equipped with a list of things to scavenge, a digital camera, a clipboard, pen, and a driver. Sam in my car and Rachel in Steve's car, both made this comment as they read over the list of items, "What's with the number 13. Oh, yeah." This list included 13 items such as take a picture doing 13 jumping jacks in front of the Opera House; take a picture on aisle 13 of a grocery store; take a picture under a street sign with 13 letters in the street name, etc. We raced back to our home (Rachel's team won due to our great difficulty in finding a 1313 address. We finally stopped a police officer who kindly called dispatch and reported an address on the other side of town. Rachel's team lucked into their address.) When we returned home, we played the pictures back in slide show format on our Wii. Unfortunately, I failed to get a copy of any of the pictures of Rachel and her team in action, but here's a few from Sam, Alexis, and Alicia to give you the idea.

The kind officer who let a driver go who was speeding and talking on a cell phone in order to assist us. (Happy birthday to that driver!)
These are the girls on the 13 step of the Court House where Nathan's adoption was finalized.
Steve was concerned that the girls wouldn't really get into the whole idea, but they were great. Their competitive juices were flowing and they were very entertaining. My favorite task was "take a picture with a woman whose name begins with the 13th letter of the alphabet." Rachel's team, of course, lucked out and the first woman they asked at a park fit the description. Sam, on the other hand, began shouting from the car to every woman she saw on the street, "Does your name start with an M?" We received several puzzled and even alarmed looks until I gave her the advice to begin with "Hello. We are on a scavenger hunt. Does your name happen to begin with the letter M?" She was less frightening and more successful after trying that approach.
Rachel decided that for her birthday this year, she wanted cheesecake. Since my last attempt to bake a cheesecake ended up with flames shooting through my oven (literally), I was delighted to purchase her birthday "cake" for the first time.