Happy Birthday to Denisa a week early!

 One nice thing about being home around special occasions is that we have more people to celebrate with. In fact, we celebrated Denisa's birthday all month long! It started the weekend before her birthday when we visited Oklahoma City. Blake and Claire (our son and daughter-in-law) invited us to stay with them, and they had fresh flowers and a birthday card waiting for us in our room. How lovely!

They also had a whole weekend of birthday fun planned. It started with a walk to Oklahoma City's Paseo District and a meal on the patio at one of their favorite restaurants.

They also made time for long walks in the neighborhood for some much-needed exercise for us and their dog, George. Denisa can't help but notice that these two men are looking more alike every time we take a picture of them together.

Denisa loves playing piano duets with Blake, and so we fit that activity in as well. It looks like George loved it as well, especially when he could sit right under the keyboard and get a front row seat for the concert.

They cooked delicious meals for us, and even had a birthday cake. If you're keeping track, that's birthday dessert #1.

 

We brought Denisa's Mother to Oklahoma City with us, so she could spend some time with her two daughters that live in the metro area. We took her to Blake and Claire's house too, where she felt like a queen being escorted down their steep driveway by two handsome princes.

We spent part of our time at Denisa's sister's house, where--you guessed it--we celebrated her birthday again. Here is birthday dessert #2, and a couple of the sweet great nieces and nephews that live in this area.

The kids put on a rocket show for the adults, aided by our nephew David. They shot off everything from this tiny rocket, to one that was more than three feet tall. The children (and Denisa) ran through the pasture in attempts to catch them before they hit the ground. What fun!

That should have been plenty of birthday celebrations for one weekend, but there is more! Blake and Claire treated us to a day at the new Oklahoma City Riversport park! They are standing in front of the 80-foot-tall Sky Trail. This is the world's tallest ropes adventure course in the world.

After suiting up into harnesses, the four of us went to conquer the balance features that go all the way to the top of that tower. This eight story tower includes six levels of challenges that increase in difficulty the higher you climb. Think about crossing narrow balance beams, walking on swaying ropes, or stepping across narrow foot holds eighty feet in the air. Mark and Claire, with their great balance and courage made it look easy. We were so impressed with Blake, who made it all the way to the top in spite of his fear of heights. Denisa tried all the challenges at the first level, and her arms and legs were already shaking from the effort needed to balance across the wobbly ropes course. It was intense! It's a good thing for her that there is an option to walk the staircase on the edge to get to the top to ride the wild curved slides down.

We rode the slides down several times, and we can tell you that the views of Oklahoma City from the top of the tower are great!

Our price of admission includes a white water rafting experience. After safety training, the four of us loaded into our raft with a guide to make it through the roughest water in Oklahoma City. We don't have any pictures of our boat ride, so Denisa had to take some of other boaters making their way down the rapids course.

You are absolutely guaranteed to get wet in this white water trip, and it was a blast!

By the time we made it through our three trips around the course, we were tired from all the paddling and screaming. Or maybe it was just Denisa that was tired, and maybe it was just Denisa that was screaming.

A parallel waterway is used for tubing without the help of a guide.  We tried going down in a boat . . .

and then in inner tubes. This is nothing like a lazy river ride, and it's a bit perilous. Blake ended up with a bloody knee, and we all might have a bump or bruise from the rough water.

The line was long for the newest addition to the water park. We watched others trying out their skills on the brand new surf machine.

We didn't have our bikes with us, but we can see that the Riversport bike park offers lots of fun for the two-wheelers as well.

Wow! What a great happy birthday weekend a week early. Thanks to Blake and Claire for their part in organizing such a fun weekend!

We left Riversport Park to spend a night at Denisa's other sister's house where--you guessed it--we had another meal to celebrate Denisa's birthday. Denisa doesn't mind getting another year older when it means getting to have so much fun! Thanks to everyone that made it such a great weekend!