Five alive!

My fifth birthday last Monday turned out to be a blast. I had a great morning – complete with cupcakes – at school.

In the afternoon, I opened presents from Mom, Dad, Turner and Hazel, and Oma and Opa. I asked for lots of books and puzzles, and that’s what I got. I also received some fun sand toys, an old school Kermit the Frog lunchbox and an addition machine. I was pretty happy with my haul.

After presents, we headed down to EZ’s, my destination of choice, for my birthday dinner. We had yummy food followed by cake. It was a great way to celebrate.

The birthday fun didn’t stop with my actual birthday though. We kept the party going Friday, when we picked up Uncle Daniel from the airport. After a nice lunch, which included a stop at the frozen banana stand, we went to Town Lake to try something new – kayaking! Well, it was new for Hazel and me at least. Mom used to have an awesome kayak, but someone stole it. Dad says we’ll never hear the end of it, and Mom says she is still not over it. Uncle Daniel uses Grandma’s kayak, so he’s done it before too.

Anyway, we loved it! We liked feeling the water with our hands as we moved through it. We saw turtles, fish and swans. We liked looking at all the seaweed and the other people out there on kayaks, canoes and standup paddleboards, especially the two ladies trying to do headstands on their paddleboards! Hazel and Mom cheered them on. Uncle Daniel took us for a quick swim in the middle of Town Lake before we decided it was too hot to be out there. We headed back in and went to the pool, where we ran into our friend Benjamin and his mom.

You may think that all sounds like a pretty full day, but it wasn’t full enough for us! We came home and I opened more presents, this time from Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Lauren and Uncle Ryan. Again, I was super excited to have mostly more books and puzzles! Birthdays rock!

Next we ate a quick dinner, then headed up to Round Rock for a Round Rock Express baseball game. We ran into our friend Noble and his parents. Their seats were close enough to ours that we were able to sit with them. I liked the songs and the snacks – especially the giant pretzels and all sorts of goodies we brought along with us. At the end, we all really liked the fireworks. They put Turner to sleep. It was a really late night, but we all hung in there even though we didn’t have time for naps in the afternoon. Everyone was really impressed with our behavior. We had a great night.

Saturday morning, we headed out for my birthday party with some of our closest friends and my school friends at Quarry Splash Pad, one of our favorite places. We had an awesome lunch with pizza, veggies and fruit, and played in the water, which seemed like the only reasonable place to be since it’s been so hot all weekend. After eating the watermelon cake I picked out a few weeks ago, we played some more. I was so happy to see everyone and celebrate with my buddies.

We wrapped up the birthday celebration by opening presents from my friends who came to my party, Uncle Daniel and Cousin Mianna in the afternoon, and took it easy the rest of the day.

Sunday we showed Uncle Daniel around Austin a little more. We took him to the Mighty Cone food trailer for lunch. It was the hottest lunch ever, Mom said, because we ate al fresco. She, Hazel and Turner had to go sleep it off, so Dad and I took Uncle Daniel to Fry’s, a computer store, in the afternoon. Next we returned to South Austin for dinner with Zhenya at Shady Grove. Hazel and I found kids to run around with, and had a great time.

Monday, Uncle Daniel had to go home. We’re sorry to see him go, but I told him we’ll see him again soon, for Thanksgiving!

For photos of our shin dig, click here.