Rosie’s End of Year Party

Rosie just finished second grade, and we decided to throw an end-of-schoolyear bash for her and some of her friends from school. The party did not disappoint.

Above is an image of the dads from the party. Taylor had the idea of a photo-booth, and it was a blast.

Why throw an end-of-year party? Good question. She didn’t graduate, thats for sure- and there were a lot of graduation parties around the area during this time of year.

Rosie and our neighbor/Rosies bestie, Sydney, on their walk on the last day of school.

I think because Rosie’s first year of kindergarten was 2020 when things were locked down and we weren’t allowed to go into the school, and do all of the traditional things where there was a chance to meet Rosie’s friends and other parents. We should have been having get togethers all along, but there haven’t been many opportunities, so Taylor and I (mostly Taylor, let’s be honest), wanted to have an excuse to meet everyone from around the neighborhood.

Rosie and Taylor spent some time putting together THE ULTIMATE DANCE PARTY MIX. And these kids were WILD. They werent disrespectful, and they didn’t break anything (that is me sounding like an old man just now), but they were a wild bunch together.

The kids self-organized into a pre-planned wedding as well. This was planned and organized the last week of school.

The happy couple.

The selfie-spot was a hit as well:

Also, instead of a large, water-themed bounce house that would produce messy kids that would track mud into the house (I vetoed the idea), there was an option for a smaller bounce-house for the littler kids.

Our next door neighbor, Jimmy, came over with this three year old to try out the bouncy house.

It was not successful.

But he got it up and running again. 🙂

Maybe this will be an annual thing? Its hard to think how we can host many more people than what showed up this year, but it was pretty fun.

Swim Team

Rosie does dance, and in the summer, for her age group, there is a 6 week city-wide swim league (is league the right word?). Each of the neighborhood pools have a team. Each week, they compete against another pool: Sherwood, the Friendly Frogs, Bur-mil, and others.

These meets are a mad-house. It seems like there are over 100 swimmers between the two teams. And each swimmer has a family of 1-2 or more people attending with them. And the competitions start at 5 (be there early), and end whenever they are complete (around 10:30 or so). It is a LONG day.

BUT, Rosie is getting more into it.

Above Rosie is slow off the start, but still eeks out a win in the 25 meter breaststroke, in the lance closest to the camera.

Rosie also did the freestyle (above, closest lane) and the backstroke. It is cool how in the videos above, she was neck-and-neck with her bestie, Sydney.

Other things.

After the party, and before assessing the damage and cleaning everything, we took a breakfast break for pancakes at Tex and Shirleys. Its funny to see Rosie living some of the exact things I lived as a kid, when I went to tex-and-shirleys with my dad 30+ years ago.

Breakfast was good. Mercy smiles a lot, until you ask her to, like the image above.

During the school day, her daycare uses an app and can send us photos of her throughout the day. We see her do things like play on the playground, play with her friends, etc.

This image stood out this week as a reminder that Mercy is a little different than her peers.

It reminded both of us of this image:

Thats it for now. If you made it this far, take a moment and share: What are your plans for the summer? Do you have anything exciting planned?