Monaloca

Last weekend was packed with Melina-centric fun for our big girl’s big day. The festivities began on Friday with a day off for everyone. My reduced work schedule and Joey’s seeming abundance of PTO made this possible, and made the otherwise school day special for our birthday girl. We’d planned to visit Children’s Fairyland (Melina’s choice) as a family, but Nalani came home sick from daycare the day before. (With Hawaii and now this, we’ve had bad timing for illnesses this year!) Instead of a family outing, Melina got a very special mama-and-Mina day.

We started with a walk next door to visit with Jeanie and Weldon, who gave her a special pink lady apple and later came by with a big Hello Kitty bag of surprises. We then got to visit Fairyland at exactly Melina’s pace, and discovered things (like the Snow White exhibit on the backside of the Little Crooked House) we’d never seen amidst competing little-kid wishes. We got hot chocolates, road the train, ran into Max and Zehma (who turned three the same day), and Melina got to ride a pink and purple horse on the merry-go-round.

Since we didn’t have to get home right away for Nalani’s nap, we drove straight from Fairyland to Rockridge for frozen yogurt at Miam Miam (Melina got four flavors!) and a quick stop at Trader Joe’s for breakfast-for-dinner fixings. This was Melina’s backup dinner choice, seeing as Nalani’s waning fever had out-to-eat plans up in the air.

Turned out we got to save our food fixings for the next morning. Nalani was feeling fine and raring to go (on a bike ride with Mama, no less) as soon as we walked through the door. That evening instead of Zachary’s pizza with Lily (which we postponed just to be safe), Melina got Lanesplitter’s pizza with Daddy, Mama, and sis.

The biggest piece of fun was still to come: a Hello Kitty party in the park on Sunday! Grandma and Grandpa showed up at 9am to stake out a spot (amazingly, they had to negotiate for a few picnic tables even at that early hour), and by 10:30 almost two dozen preschool-sized friends and their parents started to arrive. Neighbor Abby provided face-painting, Hello Kitty coloring pages some artsy fun, the playground tons of room to run and play, and a pi̱ata the one organized activity Рbesides cake, of course!

This year the weather fully cooperated: we had full sunshine and a blue sky all morning long, making for an extra lovely celebration.

A full week later we still have one final bit of celebration in the works. To make up for our missed dinner with the Schultzes on Melina’s real birthday, we’re heading to Zachary’s with them tonight. Yesterday Melina asked if she gets another present, too, since it’s technically her birthday dinner. Sorry, baby girl. But I do see more ice cream in our very near future.

Sunday update: We had loads of fun with Lily and family at Zachary’s last night. After a busy day (including another birthday party and no nap) the two five-year-olds were exhausted! But not so tired that they couldn’t enjoy root beer, cheese pizza, and cotton candy ice cream from Dreyer’s down the street. Nalani got a bit of a shock when James (completely sober) accidentally spilled a full pint of beer on her, Tracee, and me. And with that, our celebrating has officially ended.

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