Happy birthday girls. I can't believe it's been only eight years since you arrived. It feels like you have always been here, like we have all always been here. I can't remember what I did without you, but it couldn't have been much fun.
I know we weren't able to celebrate your birthday where or how we'd intended this year. But I also know you've already learned that the world is always turning, and you know how to roll with it.
One thing that doesn't change though is the waking up before dawn. As per birthday request we ate crepes for breakfast, and as per usual, we ate in the early morning twilight.
We skipped the balloons this year. As a birder I've always had hesitations about balloons, an alarming amount of which end up in seabird stomachs. This year we decided to retire that tradition.
My favorite part of their birthdays, especially as they get older and more thoughtful, is watching them give each other gifts
Then there's this boy who somehow has certain relatives convinced that he too should get some gifts on his sister's birthday.
Our original plan for the year was to spend a few months exploring the Carolina coasts, then cross the Allegheny Mountains, and head across Ohio, up the thumb of Michigan and back to the Great Lakes. Part of the motivation behind this was that the girls really wanted to spend their birthday at Lake Superior again.
Obviously that didn't happen. Instead we are here, deep in the Carolina pine forests, making the best of it again. Mostly I am fine with this, but on their birthday, I did feel like I had failed them. I felt it even more so when I went to add the related entries to the bottom of this post and I saw the last four years: train rides, nearly private lakes, white sand beaches, even the swimming pool in Texas looks pretty appealing in the stifling summer heat of South Carolina. But it is what it is, and I don't mean to imply we have a hard life or anything like that. It's just harder to let go of some plans than others.
On the bright side, we had an oven to bake an actual cake in. We still [love our waffle cake](/essay/waffle-world), but sometimes you need to change it up. Unfortunately, the kids weren't willing to wait for the cake the cool, so the frosting got runny and the cake split on us, something you don't have the worry about with waffle cake. No one cared but me.
