Waterlogged

It has been a pool kind of weekend! First, we had Abby's birthday party Friday till Saturday. She decided to have her party this year at a local hotel where we got the poolside room (yes, our local hotel has exactly one poolside room). We've never done "big" parties before, just some kids over for the afternoon or a few for a sleepover, and this one was kind of true to form, just not at our house. She had four friends over, and I gotta say... it was nice to not have to clean our house before OR after the party! (Well, not true. It needed cleaning before, and it still needs cleaning after!!) The girls were great and were very respectful of the other guests at the hotel and of us. They spent hours in the pool, and I think they were exhausted. They watched a movie around 9:30, then some tv, and then were sleep before 12:30. Not bad! The only tough part was that they decided to sleep in the bed and pull out sofa, leaving me the floor. Ouch! I'm not as young as I once was.

Abby after we decorated the room, before her friends came. She's really into posing, apparently!

Ava, always a hit. Even when she's blurry.

Basic cake (or cupcakes, really), but it was perfect, and tasted great! We even had ice cream. The hotel is right next to Culver's, so I walked over there, ordered 8 kids meals, turned in all the coupons for kids scoops and got a quart of custard, then miraculously carried all 10 drinks, 8 kids meals, 2 adult meals, 12 things of ketchup and a quart of custard back to the hotel. Not bad! I put the custard on ice, and was perfect with the cake. Yum!

Reagan, Abby, Taylor, Holly and Riley.

Reagan has been at every birthday since kindergarten, and Holly all but one. I wonder how many will be at her high school graduation party?

Same girls, different order.

Max wasn't TOO excited to be in the middle of all the girls!

Ok, it wasn't ALL pool games. They also played baloon games out on the lawn.

And then there's little Miss Ava, swimmer extraordinaire. She just loves the water, and kept alternating between putting her face in and floating on her back. Silly kid.

THEN, after Abby's party, we came home and got stuff together and went down to Dave's parents' house. It was a while in the car, but the kids relaxed and it was a beautiful weekend for the pool. We just hung out and relaxed, got Giordano's stuffed spinach pizza (yum!) (I can't wait for school to start on Wednesday so I can go back to the gym!), projected a movie outside and let Abby open her presents (Heely's were a great gift!). Then today we spent all day in the pool again, this time with my sister and her kids, and were happy we could be there in this heat.

All in all, a busy, but great, weekend. Now starts the hard part. Dave is traveling nearly every day between now and two weeks from now. We have meet and greets at school, the bigs start Wednesday, Max starts next Wednesday, Abby's telling me she wants to be on swim team again, which starts next week, and a million other things are happening. I realized this morning that I completely forgot about a doctor's appointment for Max on Thursday. How am I going to keep from losing my mind??