Years ago, at the height of your time in the Spanish program, Mommy and I thought you might want a Quinceañera. That never happened, we didn’t press for it, and you certainly didn’t ask for it. And I imagine with only slightly more avoidance than not wanting a “Sweet 16”, either.
We did, of course, still have a wonderful day, which I’m still so very much delighted that I get to be a part of. I know, it’s dopey, but your Old Man does enjoy being with you, doing things with you. I don’t know how many more of these years we have left before you’re out and about in the world, so I want to take advantage of them while I still can!
Which includes getting you up in the morning by yelling “Happybirthdaymonkey!” And repeating that all day.
We had a bit of a slow start, which is fine – it is your birthday, after all – though I was up bright and early, as usual. Birthday or not, your father holds to a schedule.
The fun really started to kick in around 10:30, which is when Victoria arrived, with the expectation that Sofia wouldn’t be far behind, so we could go off to do Downhill Carting at Winsport, your usual birthday event. However, Sofia continued to not appear. And as it turned out, she wouldn’t because she was still asleep in bed, and you ended up having to yell through her (thankfully open) window to wake her up.
We met Jen and Auntie B at Winsport. You invited Jen to come with us, as she’s in town, and it sounded like fun. She’d never done it before, so why not?
Downhill Carting was about what we expected: a lot of screaming (mostly from Jen) and me passing all of you on the first run (because I’m semi-homicidal going down that). The real difference was that it had been raining, so the track was wet (making it really hard to slow down), and I had a speaker with me, blaring music (per Jen’s suggestion, the soundtrack to Mario Kart on the first run). The rain all but stopped by the third run.
Jen and Brenda headed off afterwards, as Jen is needing to go back to Vancouver this afternoon. That left us for lunch, which was quickly decided to be the Canadian Brewhouse over in the University District. It was, thankfully, quiet, so getting a table was a breeze … and under the air conditioning vent, so also breezy.
Mommy showed up about 10 minutes after we arrived. She had been ostensibly geocaching, but she was also getting you birthday balloons. I had, of course, positioned myself facing the entrance – you rather foolishly left your back that direction – and filmed her entrance, much to your apparently embarrassment and/or disgrace, I’m not sure which it was.
We returned home to continue your party/sleepover, first dropping Sofia off to actually gather her things before coming back. I think I did some yardwork and such, but the afternoon was mostly the three of you, with Choo Choo in tow, goofing off. I made dinner, we had a couple of laughs, and then y’all went to watch movies for a few hours. I, soon, will hit the bed as I have to work tomorrow.
I hope you had a fun, albeit quiet Sweet 16, Monkey.
