Happy 30th Max

I've been struggling on how to blog about Max's 30th birthday, he had 2 pretty exciting celebrations. The first of which was in San Diego. Over the weekend of his birthday he went with some friends to participate in a Questival Scavenger hunt. I don't really know how to explain what this even is but basically it is a 24 hour race where you have to complete tasks from a long list of tasks and you document it with videos or photos. Each task has a point value and you try to do as many as possible in the 24 hours but also make good quality videos because that can give you more points. The grand prize, if you won was a trip to South America to do it again. Max's team was in the lead for most of the race too, then lost some momentum at the end with some car issues. The tasks include many different things like..."compliment a stranger in a foreign accent (Max's favorite), pick up 20 pieces of trash, hike to potato chip rock, challenge a stranger to a race, do 100 push ups in a row, create a masterpiece using food, explain what to do if you see a stroke victim, challenge a stranger to a dance off, bowl a strike and do the moonwalk...Yes, random but fun things that took them all over San Diego. Max had seen his friends doing this a couple months ago in Seattle and got really interested. When he asked them about it, they said they were doing another one in San Diego in September and it happened to be over Max's 30th birthday weekend. We debated on all going together and spending time at Disneyland and Harry Potter World but decided that wasn't in the budget but I was excited to send him off to do something so exciting and unique for his 30th birthday (Remember that time I went off to Armenia for 2 weeks to do something I loved and he gave me his full support?) Plus it got me off the hook for planning something epic for his birthday! haha! Don't worry we still had a pretty great party a week later...

Anyway, If you want to see some of the videos from their event look up teamquestivus on Instagram, you can watch some of their great videos and then I think there is a link to see all of them. Seriously do it since I can't figure out how to get the videos on here and they had some really good entries! But here are some screen shots to pique your interest.

And while Daddy was away in Sunny San Diego...we made sure to send him plenty of pictures of us in the rainy Northwest!

And doing a whole lot of rainy indoor activities. (We had to put our large "gender reveal" box to good use)

And we showed him his birthday presents that arrived while he was gone.

And the boys made their own puppets and put on a puppet show.

On Max's actual birthday, The day after the event and after he got a good night's sleep. It was Sunday, they attended a church meeting then went to visit the San Diego temple grounds. It was Max's first time visiting that temple.

They then spent the afternoon on the warm beach and in the warm ocean.

On Monday, it was his day to fly home but not until the evening so they spent the day checking out the San Diego zoo.

He got home late so his brother picked him up from the airport and even brought him a birthday balloon. The boys were already in bed so we crashed once he got home and then did a little celebrating with him the next morning. (the boys were super excited to have Daddy home and give him his presents.)

We had made him some pumpkin cookies but he didn't want much because we had a little party planned for him a week later with some friends.

Oh, and for as long as I've known Max, he's wanted a disco ball and I finally got one for him. Seemed like a 30th birthday was a good occasion.

And at some point when he got home we pulled out the chess set I got in Armenia and played while eating dry Golden Grahams. A perfect home date! I should also mention that the disco ball was on too, in case anyone was mistakenly thinking this is a lame date.

Anyway, even though we spent Max's 30th birthday apart from each other. We are so excited that he got to have such a unique and memorable experience. And not to get all sappy or anything but now I'm married to a 30 year old man and it is the best ever. (I guess that wasn't sappy but I'm tired and going to bed and will have plenty of time to get sappy on the next birthday post...coming soon!) Love you Max! Thanks for always reading our blog!! and for being an amazing and hardworking husband and father!!