TRAdition

Happy Birthday to my boy Keegan!!

 It is hard to believe he is 14 years old already, it really is true that the time goes by too fast.

We have now celebrated all four of our birthdays living in Singapore, it is hard during our birthdays and holidays as we especially miss our family and friends in the U.S.  Skype and our Vonnage phone have been a great way for us to connect to those we love back home.

One thing that has helped us is our family traditions, things that our family, The Miles Family, has done every year in our celebrating.  These traditions do make our days feel special as we miss those we love to celebrate with.

Our birthday family traditions have proven to be really fun.  As a home schooling family we declare that all birthdays are holidays therefor no school happens on birthdays.  Scott takes a half day off work for all birthdays allowing us to spend the day together celebrating as a family.

The person we are celebrating gets to choose what they want to do on their day.  Keegan chose to go to a park during the day.  AFTER he opened his gifts :)

So we went to West Coast Park for Keegan's birthday activity.

West Coast Park is a really fun adventure park, there is a lack of lawyer influence on the parks here in Singapore so they have some awesome climbing facilities at the parks, really it is fun for all ages.

And as with anywhere you go in Singapore there is amazing and interesting botanical life in West Coast Park]

I am not sure what this tree is called but it is really cool, it gets beautiful pink flowers on it and it has all of these spiky branches with some big nuts that fall to the ground, very interesting.

After the park was a perfect time to have some cake, as we were all hot from being out in the sun.

 If it is your birthday you get to choose your dessert.  We have all kinds of interest in our family, some like pie, some like cobbler some like cake and sometimes the request has even been a store bought cake, like triple chocolate cake from Sam's Club.  Keegan requested Red Velvet Cake with a lot of cream cheese frosting, so that is what we made.

Keegan felt that this was the perfect time to try out his new kitchen torch we got him.

and if it is your birthday we give you a BIG piece of cake.

One other birthday tradition is that you get to choose what you want for dinner.  Keegan choose to have a nacho bar complete with meat, beans, guacamole, cheese, salsa, olives, jalapeno peppers and scoop chips along with an X-Men movie marathon.

We spent time praying and thanking God for the blessing he has given our family in giving us Keegan.  I look forward to seeing what this next year will bring in his life.