Missed a Couple of Events

1. Skyler's 16th Birthday.

Sean's sign, and accompanying lights.

The birthday boy.  Of course his perfect Mummy could only rustle up 5 mismatched candles.  Chalk it up to having three kids, a kitchen renovation, and all the miscellaneous stuff moved to a different location.

Note Sean's taped on screen in the background.  He set up the portable air conditioner all by himself, along with a complicated attachement of hoses and pipes across the veranda floor, and the aforementioned screen to keep the bugs out of the pipes.  You can't say he doesn't think about the details.

Sky enjoyed his little family celebration, and then as part of the magic of turning 16, I took him and a friend (and Sean and Evie) down to Wonderland for a day of carousing.  His friend had a broken foot, so needed to rent a wheelchair for the day.  But once we were there, and he saw that electric scooters were available....well.

The boys went off on their own, thankfully, because I could not act like a responsible parent with one careening into the park's mascots with his scooter, or acting the part of the drooling fool, and not be laughing myself!  Sky and I texted throughout the day and I got the details later.  They had fun.  They also got to cut lines into rides, the downside being restriction on the types of rides a footcast is allowed on.  (None of the dangling feet ones).

Sean and Evie and I, meanwhile, got "chased" by dinosaurs, skipped a lot of rides because Sean wasn't game, but spent enjoyable time in the water park. Evie enjoyed the small wading pool, playing "mermaid" and naturally gravitating to 2 other Asian girls.  They were all getting along famously and it was a shame when we had to leave, but it was a long drive home...it's nice to see how she makes friends easily.

 What would a trip to a theme park be without a carousel ride?

2.  The second event that kind of slipped by without a lot of fanfare was the third anniversary of Evie's Adoption!

 Here is the picture to commemorate it, though it was actually taken on a different day.  I think different family members were quite tied up with other events, but on that day Evie and I sat down and looked over her collection of little presents that Mummy had bought for her, one for every Adoption Day till she's 18.  She was only supposed to see two of them, this year's gift, and last year's (which I'd obviously forgotten to give her at the time).  It might have been nice to keep them as a surprise, but I don't know if she'll remember them all anyways, and it was fun to see her reaction.  This year's gift was a little jade mouse, because she is born in the year of the Mouse.  Skyler is also a rat or mouse year child, and the two of them do share certain character traits, the love of burrowing, for one.  They set up forts of pillows and make little tunnels, and little nests when they watch TV, especially together.  (Evie is a particular fan of Family Guy, I'm afraid.)

The other thing we did was to watch the video of Adoption Day.  We hadn't looked at it in a long time; Evie was probably still a baby when we last viewed it.  So she was very interested, and kept saying "oh wasn't I cute!!".  We talk about her being born in China a lot, but no new Tummy Lady queries have come up.  At any rate, we did remember the day, just not as a family, but that is the nature of things when you have 5 people with 5 different schedules.



3.  The third event, really wasn't a celebration, but a long, hot, hard day of digging and slogging dirt around the driveway.  Bob rented us a little toy to help make life easier, see picture below.

It helped get the job done a lot faster, and was kind of fun to drive.  I understand why cousin Shane enjoyed his Tonka school (heavy equipment operator, in the real world), and why a knowledge of video games would be an asset.  Evie had a bit of a ride with Skyler, Sean too, and we adults got to have a turn too, but mostly Skyler did the digging (and the digging up of the lawn at one point, thanks Sky), Bob the finer work and gravel fill, and I did the grunt work.  It was so hot that day; I drank just gallons of water and never did really quench my thirst.  So hot.  But we only had the machine for a day or so and had to get the work done.  Weeds be gone!

So there's the catch-up, more or less.  I'm sure I'll think of other things as time passes.