Our beautiful girl just turned 18.

Wow! how can it be that my sweet girl turned 18?
It's an exciting time,but also a little bit frightening,as it means leaving all the doctors that have gotten to know her and cared for her.We are entering uncharted waters and expect we will have a few bumps along the way.

So we appreciate prayers for her.With that said she had the most amazing birthday.Practically had three celebrations.The first our friend John came over and brought dinner and things to make rootbeer floats.We played crouquet and he got her a Minnie Mouse watch.It was a wonderful time.

Then on her actual birthday we went to the beach with our dear friends the Lanskey's.It was an absolutely beautiful day and we had so much fun having a picnic and playing in the water.

Then we went downtown to the most amazing bakery and got treats.

After that we all went to the movies together.What a fun day.Ariel even received a beautiful Hawaiian flower arrangement.

Then since we started attending our new church Ariel has grown to love the people so much she wanted to invite the entire church to celebrate her birthday.We didn't have the entire church show up but several did.We had close to 85 people for her birthday.Icing smiles an organization that does cakes for kids with medical issues had contacted a bakery that was willing to do Ariel's dream cake.It was so amazing.Heidi and her assistant from Blackbird Bakery made Ariel's dream cake and even came and delivered it.

First everyone checked in on their gateway to Hawaii.They were given a name tag with their Hawaiian name a flowered lei and all the kids got a goodie bag.We had such a wonderful time from the pinata to the egg races,three legged races,balloon toss,water balloon fights and my friend Dianna provided face painting all day.You name it,it was a blast,not to mention we had a ton of food and Ariel was blessed by many generous friends.I wondered if Ariel had really realized what having that many people here would be like,since she's so shy,but she did great and just loved it.

We even made new friends.Linda has been signing Ariel's Caringbridge page for years.It was so nice to finally meet her and her husbands Terry in person.It was a wonderful day and Ariel was so blessed.She kept telling Gilbert and I thank you for the wonderful party.Thank you to everyone who came and helped to make her day so special.