Sam's Fourteenth Birthday

This week my baby boy turned fourteen.  FOURTEEN! And since he's off at a church youth retreat this weekend - A YOUTH RETREAT - I get to post whatever I want to about his fourteenth birthday without him looking over my shoulder.  FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY!

Oh my goodness. I know this makes me sound even older than having a fourteen-year-old child already suggested, but the time is passing unreasonably and terrifyingly quickly!

Celebration part 1: Birthday party.

Once again, Sam took full charge of planning his party, which meant there were Doritos, pizza, and video games.

I have to say that I think we outdid ourselves on the cake. I was going to make a SNES controller cake, like Ben's cake last year only different because I'm informed those controllers are worlds apart, but cooler heads prevailed when Steve insisted we just design a cake and then get somebody else to do the actual icing part. Steve and Sam did the sweet head and title replacement and the rest was all Target.

And we used one of our signature candles. For some reason, all of the candles in our "assorted" order were pink. But nobody minded once the fireworks began!

He succeeded in blowing out all the candles in one breath, so Sam got his birthday wish, which we're all pretty sure included more pizza and video games (granted!).

Celebration part 2: Concert!

This week was the second-annual Qualtrics Insight Summit (more to come on that later) and, like most conferences, we brought in a musical act. Unlike most conferences, the act was awesome.

Yes, we had a private concert with Journey on the very day of Sam's 14th birthday.

Happily, we even got to bring a few friends along

And we all wore our Qualtrics-y finest

THESE WERE OUR SEATS. FOR JOURNEY.

WE KID YOU NOT

It was completely amazing

And that's how Sam celebrated his fourteenth birthday.

Sam - every year you seem to get cooler, smarter, and kinder. Keep it up, kid. We are so proud of you.

And we'll see what we can do about bringing in a private concert with a legendary band for your next birthday. But you may need to settle for video games, pizza, and Doritos.