Puss Reboots

Friday:
Ian's parent arrived to help celebrated Sean's birthday. We met them in Castro Valley for dinner after we picked up the kids from school.

Friday was also the last day Sean's old school. He starts his new school on Wednesday. So he'll be hanging out we with me.

After dinner we came back to our house where Sean and Harriet opened birthday gifts. Harriet's birthday is in two weeks. Both got watches, something they've been wanting. Sean's watch looks a bit like an omnitrix but isn't. Harriet's watch is an adorable purple Dora watch. These watches bring back memories of my first watch, a Snoopy watch with a sky blue band that I got when I turned 7.

After presents we did our last minute birthday shopping for the party. Judy and I got the cakes, plates, napkins, drinks and extra utensils.

Saturday:
Saturday we had our usual breakfast out and then rushed home to get ready for the party. We had to put together the goodie bags which seem to be a MUST at kids' parties now. We never had them when I was a kid, except at one bar mitzvah I went to where I got a nifty calculator that went on to work for 20 years on the same set of batteries.

After getting the goodie bags put together, we packed the two cars. One last diaper change for Harriet and we were on our way. Judy, Sean and I headed south to get Sean's friend Payton. Traffic getting from his home to the party at the Lawrence Hall of Science made us ten minute late even though we gave ourselves an hour.

Out of 15 invites, only six showed up. We had about 1/3 who didn't even bother to RSVP one way or another. Is it too hard to say "No"? Those who did show up were the core of Sean's friends. We had one last minute cancellation due to a fever.

Sean and his friends enjoyed the electricity lesson and the cake seemed to be popular. The whole thing for a summer's worth of planning was over so quickly.

Afterwards, Sean, Payton and Harriet enjoyed the upstairs exhibits for about an hour. Then it was time to go to get Payton home. It was another long drive through horrendous traffic and we were finally back to our home. The whole thing was an exhausting five hours.

Since we missed lunch (other than the cake) we opted for an early dinner at the Chevy's in Pleasanton. It was apparently the night for birthday dinners. We didn't tell them that we were celebrating Sean's birthday so he was spared the bad singing and silly sombrero.

Today:
Today we had bagels and lox at home with Judy and Charlie before they had to make the long trek back to southern California.

From noon until about three, Sean and Ian were at Bianca's birthday party. It was a swim party at her house now that all the kids had taken swim lessons this summer. Sean swam himself to exhaustion and came home before the cake. I think after yesterday he was probably caked out. Bianca's pool has a water slide which was very popular with all the kids.

That was our weekend. Phew.

Current Location: Hayward, CA 94541

Current Mood: drained

Current Music: The Stars (Last Night)