Drive-By Birthday

We had a couple of birthdays to celebrate today - and a bit of an anniversary too.  We'll start with the one you see pictured above, a drive-by birthday celebration for Camille's grandfather, who turned 94 today.  They surprised him by organizing the parade to come by his house with signs and horns honking.  I'm sure the neighbors loved it.  But these days, this sort of celebration is how things are done, meeting social distance needs in a creative way.  I love what they are doing for high school graduates in Volusia and Flagler Counties, letting the graduates and their families get in a car, get their diploma at the finish like of the Daytona International Speedway, and then taking a victory lap.  Desperate times and creative measures.  It's been interesting to say the least.

The other birthday is more of a big deal.  It is Ye-Ye's birthday today, and so we went over there for about an hour, and yes, we were wearing our masks and staying outdoors.  The weather is wonderful, and they were doing a good bit of gardening outside.  In fact, they gave us a lot of plants to take home with us.  We left a few birthday presents with him as well, but it was nice to get together and talk in person, versus all this Zoom and Skype stuff that's been going on lately.

The other anniversary is this:  twelve years ago, we saw Madison's face for the first time in a photo.  This is referral day again, the end of a long process of the paper chase and the two-and-a-half year wait period.  It took that long to finally get to see Madison, and another six weeks until we went to China to finally meet her face to face.

Here's that face now.  A friend took a snapshot of this while they were talking online together.  Madison was doing a bit of that today, but we were doing other things too.  When we were out and about, we also went to Dairy Queen to get some Blizzards.  They were a bit pricy, but we were happy to get out.  Madison got the cotton candy flavor, and Daddy got this flavor called Wonder Woman Cookie Collision, just because it takes so long to say.  It's basically chocolate chip cookie dough and ice cream.  But it was good!

We got home, and we played a game of Pirates LIFE, the board game.  Daddy had the soundtrack to the movies playing, and we enjoyed a "Pirate's life," spending most of our time attacking one another for small bits of treasure.

We played some video games along the way, and Daddy was working on some items to prepare for tomorrow morning's KidPak service, namely the latest form letter that goes out to every parent and family.  Other than that, it was a relaxing and quiet day.  Our big outing wasn't terribly huge, but Mommy hasn't been out and about in quite some time.  It was nice.

We saw the next Jumanji movie tonight, "Welcome to the Jungle," and saw the bits and references that tied it to the original.  There are a few other subtle things in there, but it is really a pretty different movie from the first.  That doesn't make it a bad thing, of course.  What makes the original so fun is the placement of a stampede of jungle troubles in the middle of a suburban environment.  The fun of this one is seeing people as avatars of completely different versions of themselves, playing a game.  They're both fun, as its tomorrow night's movie, the most recent Jumanji one we just received in the mail.

We said our prayers again tonight, and went to bed a little earlier.  It's been a nice day.  We can't wait to get out even more again soon, but we're doing all right for now, and we're thankful for what we have.  It may be a jungle out there, but we keep rolling along.