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Today is Kai's birthday party. I know he is nervous about this as he got up at 6:30 - he never does this.

At school, they head out to Cross Plains. The forecast is rainy, so I'm happy they are going there since the space is bigger.

I picked him up a little early so we could get to Verona to set up. The good news it had stopped raining. One thing we kind of planned for, but didn't think it would be a big factor was the wind.

Here we are setting up around 4:30, we have an hour.

we put down rocks on the table, but it was Kai's idea to tape down the rocks that was a winning idea. I am nailing up his "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"  sign. If we didn't do nail things down, it would just waft around uncontrollably in the wind.

this also works

Here's a look at what the day looked like.

all set up

The good news is the pizza came, but it was 15 minutes early, it beat all the guests to the party. I put it in the car - it would stay warmer there.

Claire was the first one to arrive. She is our neighbor. Then Evie showed up, then everyone else.

Max, Claire and Annabelle

Even though it was cloudy and probably 72 degrees, many of the kids enjoyed the splash pad. Around 6PM we ate pizza.

left to right around table - Greg, Annabelle, Max, Conner, Dax, Kai, Emma, Evie, Rahul, Ardro

Kai, Evie, Emma, Claire

These three are the "Werewolves" from Little Red Preschool. They all went to different schools as kindergarteners, so they were happy to be back together.

Kai, Evie, Emma

It was so windy up on the hill that we went down to the lower shelter (you can't reserve it), but since there was no one there, it was our only chance to get candles burning - we went for it.

Claire, Kai, Emma

Annabelle's Dad (Greg) helped shield the wind so we could get the candles lit briefly, and then blown out.

After we got home, we had an extra pizza - we gave it to our neighbor. Their son Ardro got Kai a card and a science kit.

Inside the science kit was a bar of gold. Kai wanted his picture with the bar. He then took to editing his photo. We think he looks like the Monopoly man (Milburn Pennybags is the formal name).

That's all today - a late night, everyone is tired, and it is raining very hard again at 10PM. However, we lucked out with our two hour window for the party. It was windy, but it wasn't rainy and the kids had fun.