Wellesley’s birthday

Or Elle, as we know and love her here at home…it was so fun to have her HOME for the big day.

I wrote about what I love about her back HERE, but here’s what we did to celebrate:

Lucy, true to form, was very on top of the prep work, namely making sure she had her gift all set and ready to go, and of course, the traditional candy bar poster. I have to keep this picture nice and big so you can read it, because it’s pretty sweet if you ask me:

Max and Abby had just arrived, so it was SO GOOD to have everyone gathered around that birthday breakfast table:

Then we went to float the river.

It was hot as blazes that day (as is every day these days), but that river was so soothingly chilly. We floated with an assortment of tubes we gathered up:

Some of which deflated a tad along the way:

Ha!

We floated leisurely through my desert beauty (I do love this place so!).

And we used that opportunity to float Elle’s “cake” (which happened to be Levain copycat cookies this year…Elle’s favorite…recipe HERE).

For anyone who’s been following along here for a while, you know that Elle’s bday tradition is to float her cake…following in the footsteps of my sister Saydi’s growing-up tradition that my parents came up with from a Tasha Tudor book. (more posts on that HERE)

Dave paddled us along all in a chain when it got really slow:

…and I wish I had a picture of the fun rapid parts.

A pretty good way to celebrate in my humble opinion 😉

Then it was off to make our Nichol’s pasta (Elle’s dinner choice), games, and candles:

Let’s take a better look at those yummy cookies:

Sure love that birthday girl who, along with that husband of hers has now made the trek across to Florida, (dodging two hurricanes!), the car packed with everything they own, off blazing a new trail.