Party

Andy, Sela and Eli arrived in St. Louis Friday night June 14.  Laura picked them up from the airport and then made the required stop at CiCi's pizza.  CiCi's pizza is a favorite of Sela's and Eli's.  I do not know what they like more, the pizza choices or the arcade.  As it has been a favorite of my families since Laura was a toddler and could eat for free, it was no hardship for Laura to stop before bringing them out to the pond.

Sela and Eli left the pond very early the next morning and under very mysterious circumstances.  Suzanne had invited them over to her house for the day.  All I was told was that Andy, Mike and I were to show up at Suzanne's for dinner.  However, it was my birthday so I had my suspicions about what they were doing.

Sure enough, Sela, Eli, Laura, Heath and Suzanne had spent the day decorating and cooking for my birthday party.  With their Aunt Kathy's help, Sela and Eli had come up with the theme of Lilly.  When I arrived all the walls of the dining and living room were covered with Lilly decorations.  The table was set with a look alike stuffed Lilly dog and the chairs were covered in puppy pee pads.

Suzanne handled the cake.  She wanted to create a colorful moment in Lilly's life.  She chose to recreate Lilly being rescued from the pond by Heath.  I think she did a great job.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         The kids commemorated this same moment in Lilly's life with a game.  It was a fishing game.  The participants used a magnetic fishing pole to collect puzzle pieces.  On the bottom side of the puzzle pieces were pictures from Lilly's life.  They were worth points.  Pond pictures were zero points, pictures of Lilly's dog playmates were worth 5 points and pictures of all of Lilly's human family members except Heath were worth 10 points.  I was winning until Sela reeled in the puzzle piece with Heath's picture.  According to the game rules that Heath wrote, Heath was the hero of the game because he had saved Lilly's life when she fell in the pond.  That made his picture worth 100 points.  Needless to say, I lost the game and Sela won.

I did not realize until after the party that the stuffed dog Lilly danced.  Unfortunately she was broken but Heath, who had purchased her from the clearance bin, felt shamed into fixing her.  Some of us were not sure he could do it but we were wrong.  After some major surgery and a few tense moments when he tried to put her leg back on, Lilly was dancing away.

The party broke up soon after that as the travelers were a bit weary.  It turns out it was a good thing we left.  Pongo, Heath and Suzanne's newest family member, badly needed a rest from a whole day of party activity.  I guess because he is new to the family it might take him awhile to acclimate to our wild ways.