Claire's Birthday

Next weekend is Claire's birthday, but her dad has her that weekend, so we celebrated with her this weekend. She is 11 now. She was complaining about not being able to go to girl's camp with Lexi and Emylie. I told her this would be the last year she did not go.

She wanted to see her old friends in Coppell, so we decided to have a party at the park we lived next to. Since she did not have contact information for most of those friends, we decided we would have a reverse surprise party. We knocked on the doors of all her old friends and said, "surprise! It's Claire's birthday. Want to come to our party?" Or something like that. Only her friends Lauren and Marissa (twin sisters) and two neighborhood boys and the family were able to come. The bulk of it was facilitated by our dear former neighbor, Sybil. She made cake and had balloons and streamers. I brought burgers and dogs to grill.

It was sprinkling before we started grilling. Then the sun shone magnificently for the party. Then, as soon as we had everything packed in the cars, a downpour began. I guess that was Claire's little birthday gift from Heavenly Father.

It was a lot better than what I got her. I was going to get her some of the advertised dollar flip-flops at Old Navy, but they were totally gone and had been for hours by the time we were done with all our fun. She did pick out a handbag while were were there (she already has 1/2 dozen of them). But wer were not able to find anything else in the remaining 1/2 hour of store hours. The store was a wreck after a major shopping day and finding anything was a bit of a challenge.

The kids had school off on Friday, and Claire asked me if I could come to her track and field day on Wednesday, so I figured I could come on Weds. and spend the night with my friend Theresa (who took me on the cruise) and her husband nearby and then take the kids home Thursday evening. I spent the day on Thursday working with Theresa in her yard and brought home a bunch of monkey grass. I only planted it along the back of the house until I could get the plastic border to plant it around my things out front. Three of my four new rose bushes are blooming. Myy friend, DeeDee gave me daylilies which probably won't do anything this year, but at least I have something besides the monstrous shrubs that the developers put in.