A decade of Hadley

It's hard to believe, but we've now had 10 years with this girl enriching our lives! Double digits, an official tween, 10 going on 18.... Her birthday is always hard to plan, being in the summer and just a couple of days away from the biggest summer holiday. This year she opted for a family celebration with her perfect day. We started with kolaches and donuts and moved right into presents. Her main requested gifts: tennis shoes that tie and an Alexa so that she can ask it questions. Spoiler: she got both.

Next on the agenda was rock climbing at the local gym. All four of us darned harnesses and climbing shoes for bouldering and auto-belay routes. (Subsequently, we all discovered muscles we didn't know we had that were sore the next day!)

Climbing was followed by a trip to a real movie theater! We hadn't done that in a long while, especially as a family. We couldn't convince her to see Top Gun: Maverick (she fell asleep during the original); birthday girl's choice was Lightyear. We all liked it.

Dinner request was sushi. We inadvertently went to the same place that we went to for Owen's 10th birthday. Our plate pile was quite high by the end!

Finally, we got to the cake. Mint chocolate chip ice cream cake, that is. Happy birthday to this beautiful, funny, smart girl! She loves nothing more than reading (all day long, if possible!), uses words like "context" in general conversation, and definitely has her own way of doing things. But she also likes being goofy, is the first to volunteer to help (especially at the grocery store!), and can't get enough snuggles. She definitely has great things in store for her future. We love you!