Surprise Birthday

Marietta’s birthday was on July 14th, when we were on holidays.  She had hoped to have a birthday sleepover/campover, but her friends seemed to be on holidays each time she hoped to have it.  So after some time she sort of gave up and decided she’d settle on going out for supper with the family instead.  I could see her disappointment, as well as her willingness to settle for the next best … so meanwhile mom was at work behind the scenes trying to organize a sleepover still.

We had set a date for going out for supper, except I sort of forgot as in my head I knew she was going to have a party … that date came and we made plans for the day and suddenly Marietta pointed out that I had said we were going out for supper that night … oooppppsss, I forget how I weaseled my way out of that one, but we reset the date … for the actual day of her surprise “party” (at this age it’s no longer a party but just having friends over).

Tuesday, August 23rd rolled around and the plan was to meet Steve and Cec’s for an afternoon at Binbrook Conservation and then go out for supper … at least that’s the plan Marietta knew.  Rob went off to school (dutch) that morning and after he was done school he ran some errands and then went to pick up Kelsie and Esther and met us at Binbrook Conservation.  Since Rob had school that day I drove separately to the park, we got there before Rob and set up and the kids went off to play.   Kelsie and Esther made there way to our spot at the park under our dingy boat … but they didn’t make it the whole way and Marietta noticed the extra legs under the boat.  She was quite thrilled.  We spent the afternoon at the beach and then headed home …. no going out for supper afterall!

Late night dessert …. I think it’s called Candies with a Little Bit of Ice Cream.

The girls slept out in the tent, doing as girls do … chattering until late.  I was awake in the middle of the night taking Matthew to the bathroom … I think it was around 3:30-4am and as I came down the stairs I heard talking outside in the tent.  Wow, how did they manage to stay awake that long????  But then I looked at the tent and I thought “ah, that doesn’t look right”.  The tent had collapsed in the wind, a pole broke, (it was pretty windy that night) and the girls had woken to a tent just above their faces.  I had heard them as they were attempting to gather up their stuff and come in the house.

Jessica came to join the girls the next morning and the plans for the day had been to spend the day playing in the pioneer fort in the barn … but the high winds ruined those plans.  After that extreme wind storm we had in the spring we discovered that the roof on the barn had shifted, leaving it somewhat unsafe in windy weather.  The kids are not allowed in the barn when it is windy … and it was definitely windy that day.  Windy enough that they also really could not play outside … altho they did try swimming and jumping on the trampoline, but it was too cold and windy.

But kids are kids and given some time and they can come up with other things to do ….

Present time

  

Tea Party

 

I forget what they called this game, but they worked in teams where they would blindfold each other and then put a small amount of food on a spoon and the person had to eat it and guess what it was.

 

Indoor picnic instead of outdoors.  Marietta and Rebecca are taking voice lessons and here they are practicing/performing their song “How much is that Doggie in the Window?” and the others are acting like the dogs.

 

While I usually do not encourage TV/Videos when having friends over we did end up watching a movie in the afternoon to pass some of the time away since swimming and playing outside wasn’t really an option … movies and birthdays sort of go together.

Marietta was certainly surprised and they had a good time together.  This is the last time that Marietta saw Jessica, who has now moved to Australia.