Rayleigh's 8th Birthday!

Posted by Chandra October 03, 2021

Rayleigh's 8th Birthday!

Rayleigh turned 8 and we had a fun week of celebrating. We have all been fighting off this little cold that's going around but she did NOT want to miss gymnastics where they gave her a special birthday shout out and balloon! She reminded them every week for a long time that her birthday was coming up. Her teacher has been sharing some awesome things about Rayleigh- teaching the entire class a math concept and being so caring and compassionate. And funny! Having a teacher who is regularly sharing happy things about Rayleigh has made a HUGE impact on me. Words can’t express how much it means to me that her teacher sees what a bright shining star Rayleigh is!

We stopped by my parent's house during MCO and they gifted her with a super fun tie tye kit! They are the best and we love visiting them so much!

Oh! And I got Botox! It’s nice but it’s hard to squint in the bright sunshine. Ha ha

For Rayleigh’s birthday weekend, I planned a fun filled trip to San Diego! I booked a 3 night stay at the Welk which included 2 tickets to the zoo when we stayed for the timeshare presentation. Tanner was NOT happy about it but after a long time negotiating, he agreed to be a good sport. Unfortunately, the trip was a total bust. There was a line out the door to check in (which I was doing solo with the kids), there were no upgraded/bigger rooms available so Tanner had to come late to pick up Parker and take him home because there was not enough room for them to sleep, Jack accidentally broke a glass right when we got there and I had to wait forever for housekeeping to bring a vacuum (I swept and swept which was not my idea of a vacation), and the timeshare presentation took forever! We had to leave our kids in the Kids Club and Jack had a hard time going. I just wanted to be done and take them swimming. They’d been staring at the water slide all day and begging to go. When we declined the timeshare, they were rude.

But the last straw was when we were finally at the pool and not 1, but 2 different old men bagged on us for our parenting and basically told us that our kids were hellions. To be fair, their behavior wasn’t the best. But they slept poorly in a new place, ate nothing but junk, got left in Kids Club for 3 hours, and were finally enjoying the pool. They were kinda spazzing and the old men were way out of line and extremely rude and out of line. So, I told Tanner I wanted to bail and he fully supported me. He even went as far as to say he was PROUD of me. He helped me load up and head out but I felt awfully for changing the fun birthday plan. I didn’t even have any gifts for Rayleigh because were were doing an “experience”!

Her birthday was on Sunday and it was General Conference. Tanner said we could go to the Huntington Beach Air Show which would have been fun but there was a horrific oil spill (128,000 gallons) and the air show was canceled and the beaches closed.
I'm a planner so all of these changes was hard on me. BUT I LOVED snuggling down and watching conference. I love the Prophet! And I’m ready to do the work to keep myself and my family spiritually fed and strong. We made birthday brownies and sat in the hot tub. Rayleigh is the happiest of all little girls and was not even phased by the change of plans.

She’s amazing.
I love Rayleigh with a fire that cannot be quenched. She is extraordinary and I’m so lucky I get a front row seat to her life’s journey. I know Heavenly Father blessed her with specific and rare gifts and talents because He has a marvelous work and a wonder for her to accomplish during her mortal mission. And beyond! We are going to keep celebrating her birthday with a ditch day at Disneyland and I might even spoil her with a treat.