Birthday Time - EIGHT!!!!!!

I promised myself I would not miss blogging about Kai's birthday. I've managed to capture each kiddo birthday since we started this blog back in 2008, shortly after Kai turned 1. So I don't plan on missing his EIGHTH birthday! He is such a big and grown up boy these days. He almost comes up to my shoulder. I should have taken a photo of that for proof! And it won't be long before we're in the same shoe size. I can still pick him up, just barely. But it looks completely silly b/c his legs practically drag on the ground. And he's almost half my weight.

This year Kai decided against a birthday party. He chose a birthday outing with his best buddy L and with his Mommy, Daddy and Teia. He decided he wanted to take us all on a ride on the Amtrak Surfliner. Teia and I felt very honored b/c riding the Surfliner is an outing usually reserved just for special Daddy and Kai time. We are typically invited on Coaster rides but not the Surfliner. This has worked out just fine so far b/c Surfliner tickets are quite a bit more expensive. But it was his birthday and it probably cost a lot less than throwing a party.

We met L at the Old Town Station and began our day:

Kai was a happy boy. 

Train rides take a bit of logistical planning but we were able to swing it so we could train it to Solana Beach, have lunch, some playground time and take another Surfliner back in time for birthday cake and swimming at our house.

This turned out to be just the beginning of Kai's celebrations. We had our train outing about a week early b/c Kai's class planned a camping trip for the weekend right before his birthday. He had alot of fun running around the campsite with L, Teia and other kids from school.

Here are the boys again. Hard to believe it poured down the night before. Half the group went home early and the troopers stayed to enjoy the novelty of the rain, even when some of them didn't own raincoats. 

We packed up the morning after camping and headed straight to the airport to pick up Granddad. Kai's actual birthday was a school day but it turned out to be pretty special with Granddad around, standing on the table to be sung to, and then cake and presents at home. 

Kai's favorite thing over the past while has been VW vans so he was pretty thrilled to receive a set of 3! He'd been waiting patiently! I'm sure little sis was almost as excited as he was. In fact she woke him up on his birthday morning. She just couldn't wait to see him open his presents. 

He got lots of other cool presents too. He worked with Daddy to put together the newest jet for his collection. 

Here is his birthday celebration at school. Notice the cool VW van t-shirt. Internet shopping is just da best. And in keeping with the VW van theme, we surprised Kai with a very cool cake. I'm not always impressed with Whole Foods but their cake decorators did a great job, working only off a photo I gave them and artificial dye free too! 

Kai had a great birthday tailor made for our unique little man. He indulged his love of trains, planes, vans and chocolate cake and spent time with special people. And he even put his laundry away without being told on his birthday "because I'm eight." Of course the novelty of that wore off pretty quickly but we enjoyed it while it lasted!