The rest of the party

To round out our day of birthday-that-had-never-occurred-to-us celebration/day off from school (potayto, potahto), Monday evening we went with the Penrods again to have a bonfire in the desert. There's a park/recreational area of sorts just outside of our neighborhood called Wadi Degla. We've been hiking there before (again, another great opportunity to link you to a witty post full of beautiful pictures...that I never wrote), but this was our first time both getting pretty deep into the area and eating s'mores there. That's the only reason I believe fire should exist--so that s'mores can be created. Kevan doesn't agree with me on that, but he's wrong.

Driving into the park:
One of the many neat rock formations:
A self-and-Jess-portrait:
The area where we built the s'mores-cooking contraption:
What did I tell you? Jessie's kind of a big deal. Here she is with Eliza:
And Mairyn (who, for the record, tried to stick her hip out, but couldn't do it and keep her balance):
All of the mountain goats, er, children started climbing up the hill:
But only the oldest four made it all the way up (I promise you they're up there; look closely):
A close(r) up:
More climbing, different area:
Wanna take a guess on what's in Sam's hand here?
Or what just left his hand here?
At one point we noticed that Megan and Mairyn had gone off mountain-goating on their own and had almost made it to the top:
So Jess and Jake were dispatched to help them get back down (wasn't it helpful of them to wear bright colors?):
Jake had a lot of fun with the kites:
I'm not sure what Emma and Eliza had the most fun doing: climbing, flying kites, or giggling. I'm going to guess it was a toss-up.
Sam had a lot of fun watching the fire.
The last of the daylight over our s'mores-site:
And from where Kevan, Spencer, and some of the children were flying kites:
And then we saw the thisclose-to-full moon rise.

Kevan's view:
And mine: