The Wilson Girls Birthday Bash

Well since I don't have kids, I don't spend a ton of time at birthday parties for 4 and 6 year olds so I don't have much to compare this to but as far as I am concerned, the Wilsons had quite a bash....complete with pony rides and a cotton candy machine. THIRTY SEVEN kids descended upon the Wilsons yard all armed with bike helmets and READY for pony rides.

Kids are great at multi tasking (I'm sure many parents would argue with me here) but when the priorities are all you can eat popcorn, cotton candy AND pony rides, it's amazing how many kids will wait in line for pony rides while eating as much cotton candy and popcorn as they can...... Well, that is, UNTIL the announcement for cupcakes comes. THEN it's a free for all dash to the cupcake table while they patiently wait for the birthday girls to make it to the front of the group. THEN the happy birthday to you chorus breaks out and as the song winds down to it's final "Happy Birthday to you".....CHAOS! All the kids swarm to claim their cupcake and run off to scoff it down.......and then as if there had been no interruption they are immediately back in line for pony rides, popcorn, wagon rides, swinging, sliding or whatever else they had been up to prior to the cupcake call.

Grace turned 4 on Saturday and Emily is turning 6 this week. My favorite moment of the day was in the chaos of cupcake mania. In the nanoseconds between the end of the Happy Birthday Song and the "cupcake grab", Emily took a moment to give her younger sister Grace a birthday kiss on the forehead (SOOOOOOOOOOO SWEET!). This was especially funny since right before Grace made it over to join everyone at the table, Emily had been eyeing someone who had just taken a cupcake not knowing happy birthday was going to be sung first :- ).



A special shout out to the cupcake maker Allison. Great job. If you are in need of cakes or cupcakes here's the link to her site. www. allisonscakes.com or email her at allison@allisoncakes.com. (I've also seen a Yoda cake she once did and, if possible, I heard it tasted even more amazing than it looked.)

Slideshow for the rest of the party here. Enjoy. The images will all be in an online gallery as well (Leslie will share the link with you when it is ready).



Happy Birthday Grace and Emily. Thanks for inviting your friend Elaine to the party. I had a blast!!!!

Happy Belated Earth Day

I saw a funny ecard yesterday that said "It's too bad Earth Day is being marred by a volcano that is making everyone hate the Earth." Ha ha ha...I mean I GUESS it is really bad timing but Happy Belated Earth Day nonetheless.

Earth Day has always been a part of my life since I was 16 and caught my best friend using her own birthday, April 20th, as her ATM pin code. I laughed and was like, "REALLY??? You don't think anyone could crack that code????" So we decided then to use each other's birthdays as our pin codes (as if people were anxious to get at the $26 we each probably had in our accounts at that time). So '0420' was that little number I typed in everytime I grabbed cash, pumped gas etc for over 15 years(don't get excited that I've splashed my ATM pin on the internet...an identify theif cracked my code and now everything has had to change). But if nothing else, it was a great way to never forget your friend's birthday.... or Earth Day for that matter :- ).

I'll leave you with a photograph of a more pleasant volcano. Active, erupting every 30 minutes sounding like a jet plane is flying too low in the distance. But beautiful by day. And an amazing spectacle of splashes of fiery lava in the distance of the darkness by night. And incidentally an insane place to zipline if you ever make it near there.

Arenal Volcano- Costa Rica.

A lot of people ran really far and really fast today

For the first time since moving back to Boston, I worked on Marathon Monday. Well I TRIED to work on Marathon Monday and then realized shortly after it was not meant to be. My friend and I walked across the river and stood near mile marker 25 and cheered in some of the runners.

Not that I would ever consider running 26.2 miles and certainly never all in one day, but if I did, today seemed like the ideal weather for it. It was 50's, sun behind the clouds mostly, only to peek out every few minutes to warm the fans and I'm guessing brighten up the day of any runners who were still able to differentiate between light and dark. I, for one, would most definitely be in a very dark place at mile 25 :-).

But check out the sky from today. It was perfect. It was almost if it had been drawn by a Simpsons' animator.



As we stood along mile 25 watching many of the elite women, the top elite men, a team from the military who had covered the course in uniform complete with combat boots and gear in backpacks and other non humans who not only chose to run 26.2 miles but also ran another 26.2 miles quick enough to qualify for Boston.......my friend cracked me up with a few statements that perfectly summed up the laze of us on the sidelines "All this clapping is tiring." and "My feet hurt from standing here for so long." Ha. Go runners. Hope you are all somewhere post massage with your feet up and a beer in your hand.

Note to Self: This is the last Marathon Monday you will ever TRY to work.

Spring in New England

It was 92 degrees last Wednesday. Today it was a high of 40 and we had snow flurries. This week at the bus stop I stood in my flip flops next to a girl wearing Uggs and her winter coat. Ah, spring in New England. It's a confusing time of year but there's nothing like it.

Those first few days of nice weather in Boston can't be beat...everyone is in a better mood, everyone is outside, the swan boats go in at the Public Garden, the Duck Tours are back in the Charles, the Red Sox are back on the field and the dogwood trees are in bloom.

The dogwood tree flowers show up quickly each April and only stick around for a few weeks. But seeing them in bloom always makes me so happy. It reminds me of spring. It reminds me of nice weather and all the summer events ahead. It reminds of moving home to Boston because I moved home 5 years ago in the spring. It reminds me of my niece being born. And it is the start of flip flop season in New England. And I love flip flop season.

What I need now is a reminder of the end of flip flop season since I have in the past been judged by a homeless person in Central Square telling me to "put my toes away for the wintah". I guess snow shouldn't be my reminder that flip flop season is over.