As hard as it is to believe, we now have a 14 and 15 year old in the house! We found ourselves looking back at early blog posts recently, and seeing both girls as babies and toddlers, it’s hard to believe that we’re here already. Whether we’re ready or not for it, Lyla is 14! She is adventurous, smart, kind, active, and funny! She keeps us on our toes, and while she may be more reserved in public, she’s still the family comedian at home, and we love her beautiful and unique personality.
Speaking of unique, she wanted to take some friend to paintball for her birthday. None of them had ever been, so we thought it would be fun. I signed them up for Open Play at Hogback Mountain Paintball, and we showed up ready for some fun. When we got there, the man at the check-in station actually tried to talk them out of it. He warned them that they’d be playing against men “who wouldn’t take it easy on them” and maybe they should come back the next day for the low impact time slot (and play with younger people). Despite his lack of encouragment they decided they wanted to play. After getting all geared up, they were taken to meet the Open Play group and definitely got a bit nervous there. Nearly everyone playing was a man, and a good portion of them had their own guns and gear - basically they did paintball a lot and often. After getting over their initial jitters, they got assigned to a team and went out to play, and they ended up having a blast!
After 3 1/2 hours, the Open Play session was done, and they were out of paintballs and covered in dirt, paint, and bearing a few bruises, but they won some compliments from the guys on their team and ended up having a really great time.
I tried to get a few pictures of them in action, but I was in the “dead zone” which is behind a safety net, so the pictures look a little fuzzy through the net, but it was fun to watch them when they were on a course nearby where I was allowed to stay. Next time, I am definitely going to be out there playing. It looked like so much fun!
We got back to the house and had a pizza dinner and a sundae bar to finish, and after a few more hours of hanging out, they called it a day. Needlesss to say, Lyla was wiped out by the time it was all over, but she said it was a great day of fun, so we were glad about that.
Her actual birthday fell on a Tuesday, so after a donut breakfast and opening some presents, we stopped off for a birthday Starbucks on the way to school. She said she had a fun day at school, and then keeping with tradition, Uncle Bo came over to celebrate his birthday with us. We had a great dinner, then celebrated with Lyla’s requested “gym rat” themed birthday cake. It was a great evening celebrating these two, and we love them both so much!
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