Griffin turns 4, well almost

We celebrated Griff's 4th birthday yesterday, a little early due to my call schedule and other things, but man, it was fun!  It was the first birthday party that his buddies from school attended, which was so fun, totally crazy but absolutely adorable!  We had about 9 preschoolers running around, exploring and finding treasures.  So fun!  We decided to celebrate on Mt. Lemmon again, last year was so nice and cool and with the recent temps topping out at 115 degrees there was literally no way we were going to have it outside anywhere other than the mountain. We rented a group picnic area which was totally awesome, tons of tables, shade, water, BBQ's, trash cans and clean bathrooms.  The kiddos ran around like crazies and collected pine cones, sticks, rocks and other treasures while we cooked.  My Mom had this awesome idea to give the kids all a canvas bag to write their name on that they could take around and put their treasures in, and we filled it with some goodies like trail mix and fruit snacks.  The kids loved decorating their bags with markers and some of them (my son included) even tried to catch a fish using their bag. 

Group shot!

Selfies with Dad

Cake time!

Griff wanted a superhero cake

Yum!

After the BBQ and cake we decided to take the kiddos down to the lake.  We hopped in the car because it was a bit too far to walk and drove down.  When we got in the car Griffin said, "This is the best party of my whole life!".  Sean and I just smile at each other, all the cooking and planning was worth it, just to hear him say that.  He literally was having the time of his life, outdoors with his buddies, stuffing their faces with cake.  Perfection.  We arrived at the lake, unloaded and started our walk down.  At some point the kids all decided they should hold hands and be safe.  That took a fair amount of organization, it was fun to watch them do it.  It didn't last long but it was really cute!
 

So close!

So so so sweet!

Here they come!

Bags in hand, ready for adventure!

I'm fairly certain that the fisherman weren't too happy to see a group of preschoolers coming, but we walked the lake.  No one fell in, the kids saw some fish and we all made it out alive.  Success!

Having fun!

Little fish!

"I'm gonna catch one with my bag!"

We all headed back up and said good bye to his friends and family.  We stopped by the forest service station and bought wood to roast marshmallows.  My mom stayed up at the picnic site so we were able to go to the lake, which was great because Ama got to roast marshmallows too :)

Rare family picture- Thanks Mom!

Ama with the birthday boy

Yum!

Graham's first marshmallow

What little kids don't like a good campfire?

Graham loved the mountain too!

Good thing we saved this for last, watching him do this was fun.  Controlling 9 kids, no thanks!

On our way home we were able to stop along the Catalina Highway and watch a fire crew work on putting out a fire that had started that day in the Rincon's.  It was amazing, we even got to watch a plane dump a full load of fire retardant.  The rest of the drive home was beautiful and amazing as we watched a pretty strong monsoon storm pummel Tucson, lightning and all.  When we got home our street had literally turned into a river,  What a day! Sean and kept commenting on how much fun we had...so it is possible to enjoy yourself at your own preschoolers birthday! Awesome.