Celebrating Daryl's birthday

Birthday flower bouquets from the kids



Lunch.....minutes before the arrival of a 'special guest'

Daryl trying to retreive the 'special guest' from the pool, after his jump

'Special guest' trying to decide what is worse, going back in the pool, or the Blouin kids trying to put him in their bug box

Deciding what to do with the 'special guest', whom mommy by now wants nothing to do with!

Singing 'bonne fete' and 'happy birthday' to a very special daddy and husband, on his 35th birthday

We celebrated Daryl's birthday on Saturday, and a great day was had by all.  Daryl decided that the best day would be one spent at home......drinking coffee, and hanging with the family.  So that is exactly what we did.  The kids were quite proud of their gifts, as they had spent hours making egg carton flower bouquets.  Daddy thought they were pretty good too :o)  Lunch started out to be a normal lunch outside, until Daryl got a glimpse of a 'special guest' peeking at him from under the table beside his plate!  Yep.....it was another gecko!  Very quickly everyone was in a hype, trying to find the net and Dad's new birthday present, the bug box (which was believed could also make a very good gecko box).  The poor little guest didn't know what to do.....as we caught him in the net and were transferring him into a shoe box, the 'special guest' took off over the edge of the balcony, and.....jumped 11 feet into the swimming pool!  You can imagine that this created an even more excited atmosphere, and cheers were coming from the kids as Daddy ran down the stairs to the pool to rescue the 'special guest'.  We didn't know that geckos could swim that fast, but he did make it to the edge.  Daryl scooped him up in the net, and then the little guy didn't know what to do!   He did end up in the pool once again, with a much slower swimming stride.  Mommy couldn't handle watching anymore.....kids thought this was awesome.....Marcus was now alongside daddy with a racket to try to retreive him once again from the pool.  It was decided that the gecko should be allowed some quiet time alongside the pool to recuperate from the excitement, and the crew all headed back up to finish lunch.  Not sure what happened to the 'special guest' after that, as he sat for a very, very long time on the pool deck.  If he has any memory at all, I am sure that he will not be back at the Blouin lunch table for a very, very long time.  The rest of the afternoon consisted of bug catching, playing Daryl's new 'jenga' game, and facetiming with friends and family.  A true birthday to remember for Daryl :o)