Christa's Birthday Party

Today at 12:00 this afternoon we all got in the car and drove to Elisabeth's house, to celebrate the sixteenth birthday of her sister Christa, with their family and some friends from church. It takes about an hour to get there, and since our region's annual "hippy fair" was going on near the rout we had to take, we were slowed down considerably. Forty-five minutes were spent crawling down the road pontificating on things like veganism and tie-dye, and staring at the "coexist" bumper sticker that was pasted to a car crawling along ahead of us.

And this is just a section of the "parking lot" of the fair. I shot this picture as we drove by. Nice job reducing emissions, people-who-like-to-attend-an-earth-worshipping-fair. Niiice job. (Not that all of you go to the fair with this worldview- if you love premium unleaded and Buicks I wholeheartedly commend you for driving to get your vegan-burgers.

Finally we reached our destination.....and went down to the highschool field to play softball. It was pretty entertaining to watch Gabriel scrambling around the outfield on all fours, my mom and dad running to home base together, and Ellie miraculously surviving the perils that go along with the job of catcher.

Christa- the sweet and thoughtful hostess.

Ellie- and Gabriel? Posing in the background?

Maggie- so cute.

Autumn! Autumn made a prodigious effort to help her team by catching outfield balls, unlike me, who was too busy making a prodigious effort at scratching my ankles.

We went back up to the road to the house, changed, and jumped in the river.

There were some evil looking alligators in the water, but so far as I know, they bit no one. Except maybe each other. (And no, this photo was NOT taking IN the water.)

Left to right: Autumn, Moi, Margaret, Elisabeth, Ellie, and Autumn. 

Hmm. A ubiquitous feet picture. Except in this case our feet are super dirty. (Yes, it IS time to get that chipped pink stuff off my nails...)

Then it was time to eat.

This is Ellie and Autumn's amputee brother Abe, who really isn't an amputee at all. Sometimes I get the itch to stick my arm inside my shirt, too. (Well actually, that wouldn't be true. But we can all sympathize with faux amputees.)

Christa opening her presents.

Aaaand, one of the delicious chocolate cakes. (Which reminds me, I discovered another wonderful chocolate cake recipe online this week. I'll post it sometime soon with my pictures.)

Well, that's all for now. I'm looking forward to going to Handel's Messiah tomorrow with a few ladies from our church, as well as attending a track meet this Thursday where I will yet again exhibit my nonathletic prowess. (Ellie and I really wanted to do the pole vault- it sounds so much more thrilling than just running around in circles. But then we decided we wanted to be alive on Friday.)

Hope you all have a lovely Sunday,

Natalie