THE BIG ONE

Today is Brenton's big birthday. No he is not a teenager. I think it is bigger than being a teenager. He turned 12 on January 21 st. We have a tradition that the birthday person gets to pick where they want to eat for their birthday. Brenton wanted to eat a Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse. I love this place it is a great place for families to go. We haven't been to this restaurant for a long time since the one closest to us went out of business about 2 years ago. The restaurant's theme is a Canadian hunting lodge. So that being said major dead animals on the walls. Deer heads, fish, buffalo, moose, antlers etc you get the picture. The kids love it. The buffalo and moose talk and some of the other animals swing from a lantern, peek out of a barrel, or just move their head. For your birthday, some of the staff come out and sing to you with a huge moose head puppet and there last line of the song is kiss the moose and you are to kiss it. The kids love it.

Brenton kissing the moose

Before we went to dinner we let Brenton open up his presents. we should have waited till after dinner since he wanted to stay home and go eat later and try out his new video games. We finally got him to agree to go without too much fight.

Brenton with his presents

Since they gave Brenton a brownie with hot fudge and ice cream and we ordered a big warm chocolate chip cookie with ice cream (you can't go to this restaurant without getting one) we did his cake and ice cream a few days later when we had the family over for his birthday.

Brenton with his cake

The reason I think this birthday is bigger than being a teenager is. He has graduated from Primary. He is legal to babysit for short periods of time. He got the priesthood. What can you say when you turn 13. Nothing everything stays pretty much the same. The Sunday after his birthday he got the priesthood. The Sunday after that, Brenton and Jon passed the sacrament together. It is a tradition in our ward that when the son gets the priesthood the following week he passes with his dad. It was cool. We made sure we sat in the right aisle so he could pass to us. He did a great job. That same Sunday was fast Sunday so they gave him a route to call and collect fast offerings. He did all the calling himself and was only able to get a hold of 2 families one already paid at church so he went to only one house later that day and then went to a member of the bishopric to hand it in. So they put him right to work. He has only been a deacon for a month now and he has already given his first talk in sacrament meeting last week. His topic was Family Home Evening and he did a great job very clear and easy to understand (unlike most young men who give talks). He got lots of compliments. Now he is no longer an 11 year old scout and an official Boy Scout. I can't believe he will be going to Scout camp this summer (yikes my baby is growing up). He also did his first scout fund raiser on President's day. We have a subdivision that the boy scouts sell subscriptions to. The subscriptions are for the boy scouts to place a flag in their front yard 5 times a year (president's day, Memorial day, 4th of July, Labor day, and Veterans day). Brenton and Jon and one other youth were one group that at 6:30 am started putting up flags in the yards and then they had to go back around 6:30 pm to take them down. I'm not sure if I'm ready for all this excitement.