40 Matt years

February 28th Matt celebrated his 40th birthday!  What a gift to have this man in our lives, he is definitely the family hero and we are all smitten!

That's 40 candles - quite a glow, huh?  I love this picture!

Matt has big 40th birthday plans to climb a 20,000 ft mountain in late June.  I'm so excited for him to have this opportunity - he's deep into making arrangements, choosing a guide team, etc.  It will be a 8-9 day trip with multiple nights on the mountain at different camps before they attempt the summit.  It's the perfect way for him to celebrate 40 years!

And his actual birthday week we had lined up 4 different dinners (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) all in celebration.  But the week turned out different than we expected and we spent quite a bit of time and energy addressing some new challenges and plans got derailed.  ugh.  Thursday (the day that just the two of us were going out to dinner, which was cancelled) I was pretty frustrated, but with the gift of two weeks behind us, I can see that God really did redeem a lot of those missed opportunities.  He also has one last birthday dinner (with a bunch of guy friends) re-scheduled for later this week - so in the end he's definitely stretched out the celebrations!  ha!

The biggest celebration is definitely coming up this June, and I am Oh-So-Hopeful that he gets to set foot on the top of that mountain!