Happy Birthday!

After too many years away Tita can now easily come to all our family celebrations. It felt so good to have both my birthday girls home again. :-)

Cyrus and Tita played a rousing game of "Beat You to the Castle".

Mischievous little gamer intense with competitive spirit.

Meanwhile, Chacha guarded the busiest spot in the house and...

... Gabriel guarded the couch. Actually, he had returned from Cali on a red-eye and took an amazing nap. No matter how much noise we made I don't think he ever woke up.

While his dad napped this little architect was seriously considering his next move.

I know I've said it before but both the boys are great at puzzles.

I love this pic. Cyrus is helping Kai put the confounding pieces together.

Look at that face.

Shirin wanted to eat Asian noodle bowls, so I gave her the credit card and she and Tita went shopping for all the ingredients we didn't already have. They washed and chopped and sautéed for quite a while.

The end result was delicious. We also had a Tum Yum-ish soup.

A pumpkin roll served nicely as our birthday cake. Notice that 8 candles (no significance to being 8) are glowing in this picture and in the next picture...

... only 6. Kai couldn't restrain himself at the end of the birthday song and tried to blow out all the candles! Fortunately he left 6 for the birthday girls to blow out after making their wishes.

Matching twin kitty buns!

A bit more practical, some work out clothes.

Can you tell Shirin got that from Gabriel? The boys were so excited.

Tita got a really cute shirt from Shirin.

Gabriel brought some amazing toffee back from a candy store in SF. Look at those two little vultures ready to pounce! Later in the weekend David and Chacha ate the rest of it.

He also brought a superhero adventure book.

The next morning Gabriel and Kai share a tender moment before breakfast.

Saeed labored hard to prepare all the components of Persian breakfast.

Saeed and I normally don't eat cheese any more, so this was a real treat and we all enjoyed it so much.

Chacha helped me pre-wash the dishes.

After breakfast the women and children went to the Riverwalk. Tita took off and ran the full 4.5 mile loop while Shirin and I took it a bit slower. Of course she had the boys and I had Chacha but we ran a bit too. Chacha was so excited to see the water he nearly pulled me in. We were all hot and sweaty so Shirin told the boys to take off their shorts so they could wade in the water and they were more than happy to do that.

There was also no chance of taking a serious picture!

Tita had never actually seen Chacha swim before, but I caught it on tape. Shirin took the boys out to that rocky strip until Tita and I harassed her about going out too far with the boys. Chacha ended my filming abruptly as I had to turn off the camera to catch him! It was a very exciting weekend for all.