Amara's Birthday- She's a Whole Hand!

We were still on our camping trip when Amara's 5th birthday rolled around.  We didn't stop the fun, but just continued on the rest of the day in celebration of Amara.  We woke up to a rock chuck sitting on the porch of the guard station we were staying at.  Surely he was there to wish Amara a happy birthday!  We pulled out the present that Grandma and Grandpa Christensen sent in the mail a few days prior.  She couldn't wait to see what she got!

 It was a bunch of fun books.  That is perfect for a little girl like her who knows how to read and often will pick up books to read to herself or others.

 After the Ranger visited us, he left Amara and Lily a sticker and a frisbee.  They had fun with it while we packed up our stuff.

 Goodbye Guard Station!  It was fun, but we're ready for our real beds.

 The views were spectacular on the way back into Vernal.  We still had some morning left when we arrived in Vernal, so we took the kids to the Kid's Canal in Vernal where they could go fishing.  We saw 2 fish about 4 inches long, but they weren't biting the powerbait we brought.  Amara did catch something, though...

 ...a mess of sticks and weeds.

While in Vernal we had Amara choose where she wanted to eat for her birthday lunch and she chose Golden Corral (with a little mild persuasion from Steve).  She loves the chocolate wonderfall, the ice cream with candies you can dump all over it, and the cotton candy.  All the other food is just there for decoration. 

After we ate, we went to Walmart to buy her a birthday present.  She got to pick one and Lily got to pick one to give her.  She picked a pack of horses that came with a saddle and reins, which she absolutely loves!  Before she got this toy, she would take her other toy horses and use the clay we have to make them saddles and reins so her toys could ride them properly.  Lily got her a little dog that wags it's tail and moves it's head when you pet it.  Amara loves puppies and playing like she is one, so of course she loved this little pet.  I find it all over the house in "beds" that Amara has made out of dish cloths or boxes or baskets or shoes or whatever she can find.

 

Before we left Walmart, we picked up an extra ice block.  We had plans for that.  We decided to go ice-blocking down the hill by our church with the leftover ice chunks from our cooler.

 The day didn't end with ice blocking!  We got showered up and went bowling at the new Ute Bowling Alley in Fort Duchesne.  It was a lot of fun!  They had a few bugs in their scoring software (not that it mattered much), but other than that we had fun bowling with bumpers.  They had bowling balls that were light weight for kids.

 Amara had a technique that seemed to work for her.  She'd roll the ball down the lane, then lay down and point which direction the ball needed to go.  With bumper bowling, I really thought I'd have no problem breaking 100 this time, but no luck.  Our final scores ranged between 68-115.

I don't remember where we went out to eat that night, but I remember that I ran to the store and bought some goodies to make a quick cake for Amara.  I used Little Debby Zebra Cakes and Cosmic brownies and sandwiched a layer of ice cream in the middle to make her 5-minute-ice-cream cake.

 Grandma came over for cake and brought her gift for Amara.

 Hurry!  The ice cream is melting!