Celebration!

We're enjoying some times of interaction with friends! I planned a small birthday party for Austin last week, trying to avoid missing friends who might go out of town to visit family or who might be celebrating their 5th-grade graduation, which all of Austin's friends just completed 5th grade. I was also aware that some people may not be ready for a lot of interaction yet. He invited his 5 besties and only 3 were able to come. We had it at Freedom Park, two days after the public parks were opened! It will go down as one of the most memorable birthday parties ever!

Karissa made a Minecraft cake.

There were blue jelly beans in the middle. It was a surprise cake!

She also made these little candy cakes that are a Minecraft thing.

Thunderstorms were predicted for that day, but I kept my eye on the weather. That morning, when it looked like all would be fine, I texted all the parents and told them we were still on for 4:30. Victoria ended up being able to hang with two friends that afternoon, so she didn't end up coming. Karissa brought there friend, Ash, and we went to the park around 3:30 to get a table at the pavilion, in case a lot of people decided to go to the park that day. It was very hot, humid, and sunny, when we arrived. At 4, a rain shower passed through, and then it was sunny again, so we thought we were done with it for a while, though we knew more was coming at some point because of the dark cloud cover in the distance. Sam, Owen, and Kaleb all came around the same time, as it was just starting to darken up and cool down quite a bit. I told all the parents that we would text them or just bring the boys to my house if it got bad, but Sam wasn't going to allowed in the house yet.

They played tag on the playground and infection, some of their favorite games (infection now has new meaning for all of them!) Then they ran over to play World Cup at the soccer nets. As it got darker, I checked the weather and noticed it would start raining in about 5 minutes. It was perfect because they would start getting hungry and Jason was on his way with the pizza. We ran back to the pavilion where they found the water balloons in the cooler and started their balloon fight as Jason was arriving. Nice and wet, they were able to eat their pizza under the pavilion as the wind and the rain suddenly started and got pretty crazy! Jason said it would continue for a while and we had 45 minutes of the party left, so he drove the cars right over to the pavilion, everyone piled all the stuff in the two cars, and we took off. I decided to volunteer to take the 5 boys in my car and Jason took the girls in his. That was an adventure- 5 wet, smelly boys in my car, along with a bunch of sand from the sand pit that stuck to their feet as they ran through it wet! Plus, someone passed gas and they had to roll down the windows- remember, it was raining still. Those boys were dying of laughter and fun, though!

His only "gift" of the party was from Ash. His friends brought gift cards.

Tag

Foot in the middle for Infection.

Water balloon fight!

We finished the party in my front porch with cake, ran over to the open garage just as the rain let up so I could hang the pinata from the basketball hoop, and took turns hitting it when the rain wasn't too bad. Since the pinata was soaking, Austin, who was the first to hit it, knocked it off on the first hit and the rest just took a turn beating it on the ground until it burst. They ate candy and laughed, and shot hoops from the garage and even some in the rain. Sam left a few minutes early, so Owen and Kaleb went inside to play some video games before they left. It was so crazy, but so fun! Those boys hadn't hung out like that in forever and really enjoyed themselves! I'm so glad we got to celebrate Austin that way.

That was Wednesday. On Friday, the last day of school, we went to non-school sponsored "clap out" for the 5th graders. There weren't too many kids there, but it was fun to see some other friends and celebrate their graduation from Miller Elementary school. Someone even brought cookies in baggies to pass out. I don't think Austin felt like he missed out on anything from his end-of-elementary school years. He's so easy to please and everything is so much more appreciated by everyone after all that social distancing.

5th graders waiting to walk down.

Running back through, here comes Austin!

Phew, we made it!