Happy Birthday Dad {58}

Today I should be celebrating my Dad's 58th Birthday with him.

Instead, my dear friends are putting flowers at his grave for me, and we let balloons go up to heaven for him.

One day I will celebrate with him again. Until them, I will continue to reminisce about all the wonderful memories I have of him.

Yesterday we went up to the rim to celebrate my Dad's Birthday. I always feel the closest to him up there because he started taking me camping when I was just a baby. He loved to take us camping and I have wonderful memories of our camping trips up there. When I was just a year old, my Dad carved our names in double log cabin. I love to go there and see my name, it's a priceless memory of my Dad.

We ate Pay Day candy bars in honor of him since that is his favorite.

We left Chips Ahoy cookies for the chipmunks and we drove around looking for animals, a favorite from my childhood.

We did see a few elk but it was rainy most of the time so I think all the other critters were hiding.

It had been 2 years since I have been up there and boy have I missed it.

I love the crisp, pine smell of the mountains and the cooler weather. We actually wore sweatshirts yesterday because it was cold. I love all the greenery, the pine trees, the mushrooms, I love it all.

I have to add this story because it's just crazy. 2 years ago when we went up to the rim for my Dad's Birthday we brought balloons to let go. When we finished setting up camp, we went to get them out of the car to let them go and they were gone. We are assuming they blew out the window, but we were surrounded by trees and miraculously they weren't stuck in any trees around us. Well yesterday, we let 4 balloons go. For some reason the helium wasn't doing it's job and they didn't want to fly high in the sky. 1 did, it went up, blew across the sky and up to heaven. The other 3 slowly floated up, but sadly went in trees. At some point 2 of them fell back down to the ground and I tied one onto double log cabin and Haylee put the other one in our car. Because it was rainy, our windows and doors remained closed. When we were ready to leave, Josh loaded up the chairs and cooler and I asked where the balloon in the car went and it was nowhere to be found. We looked all around the area because I knew it had to be on the ground somewhere, but it was nowhere to be found. It wasn't windy at all so I know it didn't blow away. Did the helium decide to work and did it make it's way up to heaven? I don't know. Just ironic how my Dad's balloons are always mysteriously disappearing.

We ate lunch up there and the girls had fun exploring.

They enjoyed picking flowers, playing with pine cones and searching for butterflies. We had a fun time and we can't wait to go back.

Happy Birthday Dad. We love you so much and miss you each and every day!