Party time

It's been a couple busy weekends and I thought I would capture some of it here. I already talked about the photo walk I went on, but the day after that Riley and I attended my friend, Josie's daughter's 4th birthday party (one of many kid's parties we've attended recently).

Josie asked that I take pictures so I did (but we all know I would have taken them without her asking). We had fun playing in her big back yard, eating Filipino food, and having treats. Josie had the local ice cream truck stop by which is owned by a 16 year old. Impressive. Josie and I worked at an ice cream place when we were teens, but I can't imagine owning anything at that age.

This past Saturday was a doozy with a visit to the gym, gymnastics, 2 birthday parties and a neighborhood bike parade. It was a bit much, but was fun and resulted in a very tired girl. She even took a short car nap which hasn't happened in forever.

This was her last gymnastics class of the 6 weeks series. They only let you sit in on the first (I was working) and the last so I finally got my chance to watch her. I totally wanted to do this as a kid, but my dad put me in swim class instead (and I can barely swim, but I could have been an Olympian gymnast - except for the part where I'm not remotely flexible).

Watching Riley run around and do all the activities made me wish there was gymnastics for adults. When I suggested this to Jesse he may have implied that we are too old for such movements. (Just found an adults class near my house - so tempting).

We signed up for another 6 week run that starts in a couple weeks, but the only time they had available was when I work (Jesse will take her) so I was especially happy to sit in on this session.

After gymnastics, we had to navigate through multiple construction zones to get to our next destination... Edinborough Park for the first birthday party of the day. Partly because we were running late and partly because I just didn't care, I let Riley stay in her gymnastic's clothes. I brought a change of clothes for this destination and the next (for dancing), but she was happy in her outfit and it made life so much easier not to change her.

We've been to this park many times, but never on the weekend. It appears that this is birthday party central at that time. It was fun to connect with some of the other parents and watch Riley run around with her friends.

Party number one ended at 2:00 and the next party started at 2:00 in another city - on the other side of the construction. Much of this party was going to the second party so we all scrambled to get to the dance center without being too late. Riley danced at this place last year so she ran right in without thinking twice about where to go. I decided to go home for a bit, but grabbed a peak of the girls dancing before I left.

Before we got the two birthday party invites, we planned to attend a bike parade put together by our neighborhood. I thought we would skip it altogether once we knew about the parties, but Riley was determined to go to it. We missed the actual parade part, but some of our neighbors were still there so we got to chit chat with them. Riley also got to decorate her bike, got a medal, and had another a treat.

As you can imagine, Riley slept hard that night. I was most impressed with her great mood all day - it certainly made a crazy busy day that much more fun.