Happy Birthday Cindy!!!

Here she is on her first birthday defending her birthday cake from her brothers.

Here she is getting all pretty for Church.

Here she is playing in the dishwasher. No, she wasn't supposed to do that. She's also got a bottle of her mother's nail polish. No, she wasn't supposed to be playing with it. No matter what kind of mischief she got into, she always figured she could charm her way out of trouble. We hope she grows out of it.

Little charmer.

Tiny Dancer.

Pre-school picture.

Easter girls.

Here we are at birthday number four. Summer Schoenrock waits patiently for all the rigamarole to get over with so she can have a piece of cake.

Disneyland, summer '89

Mommy and Cindy at Disneyland.

Cindy and Daddy, 1990.

The Petersens, all grown up.

Cindy and some old guy.

I have to tell this story. I think it’s funny. Others might not.

When we got the news that we were expecting our fifth child, we were thrilled. I was even more thrilled to learn that the due date was Nov 10th, the Marine Corps birthday.

This was back in the "olden days", (23 years ago) before ultrasounds were commonly available for the masses, so we had no way of knowing if our child would be a boy or a girl. I told Kathy that if we had a little girl, and she was born on Nov 10th, we would name her Marina Cora, in honor of the Marine Corps birthday. She didn’t like it at all, and told me so. (I didn’t like it either, but I had fun teasing my wife.) I convinced her that I was serious, but it would only happen if we had a little girl, and she was born on Nov 10th. Then, just to spite me, Kathy gave birth to Cindy Kaye Petersen on Nov. 8th 1984.

So, happy birthday, Marina...er, Cindy. And many more.