Yep, that’s right, 13 years ago in an apartment in Katy, TX - Joel Foster Carberry – 6lbs 7 oz 19 1/4 in. came into the world. His dad, who counts that as the greatest moment of his life, helped him into this world. Reaching down and pulling out a son! I went into labor on a Tuesday and Joel came Thursday morning at 5:46am, that’s a long labor. (But it was a labor of love.)

Now Joel is 13. He is about to make the rank of airman basic in CAP, he likes fencing, bowling and video games. He likes math, but hates writing. He can now take the bus to the mall, ride his bike to town center and walk to King Soopers (that’s called responsibility.) He can baby-sit for us (which is sooooo nice), mow the lawn and he has graduated from emptying the dishwasher (it’s Bethany’s job now.) He wants to fly an airplane in the future and his goal is to get into the USAF academy. I’m looking into an apprenticeship at the Centennial airport for him soon.

For his birthday he invited some friends to go to Casa Bonita. It’s this place that is a replica of (a governors mansion I think) a building in Mexico. Inside it’s huge. Here is a cave eating area, magician stage area, 30 ft waterfall, 2 arcades, more dining and a gift shop.

We took up a whole section behind the mariachi players (we did have 18 people!) I made Joel a baseball cake, you can’t see the symbol at the bottom, it’s CR for the Rockies.

We ate and played and had cake and played and explored. It was packed in there, I used to think of it as a tourist place, but I think people go there as a family once a month or more. So, Joel and his friends had fun and then we went home. Two of his friend got permission to sleepover, but James had to come down and tell them to be quiet at 2:30am. All in all I think he had a great time. Now he’s officially a ‘young adult’ (not a teenager!)