The McCormick Family: Birthday Fun Days

This weekend Elizabeth, Pico, and I went down to South Louisiana to celebrate a birthday. Friday we stopped off in Lafayette to vist with Eliz's sister, brother in law, and their cute son, Rives. He is two and you can tell. We met at the rock climbing gym, Rok Haus, for some climbing and general fun and frivolity. We were fully expecting Rives to be climbing up and down the walls, expending his energy as he went. He has loved climbing at the playground and we were pretty sure he'd get a kick out this. Turns out he was having more fun running around on the soft floors, playing with the ropes, and weaving through the feet and hands of the other climbers, then actually doing any climbing himself. I know this is something he will enjoy, it just might take another year or so to get him into it. We had a nice Thai dinner with them and went to bed early (as I seem to do more and more in my increasing years).

Saturday we ventured to Denham Springs, arriving in time to help set up for the party. Annalynn's birthday is 8/9/10, but as days change, we celebrated on Saturday, the 6th. Tony and Sarah did an amazing job decorating the house, and mom even helped preparing food and getting everything in order. Guest came, AnnaLynn cooed, presents were open, it was a party. Lots of fun. Some highlights were Laura getting to join us via Skype. It was nice to have her there. She got to enjoy watching her favorite niece and everyone at the party got to see how Skype proficient ole AnnaLynn is, impressive by the way. Also, in a year of her life she had never had cake or ice cream. No sweets, no joy of knowing refined sugar, milk, eggs, and butter. So she was able to celebrate with cake and ice cream. We all took lots of pictures to document this occasion. As she was winding down with the cake I noticed her mom had put grapes on her plate. Annalynn was choosing them over the cake and ice cream. Her daddy was proud of this, and I have to admit, so was I. Good job to Sarah and Tony for instilling good eating habits at such an early age, now how you going to teach those to me?

Eliz and I spent the night in the house with them that night and we left out the next morning. Not before, however, I got a good trail ride in and Eliz a good trail run. We headed back home around 10ish with a stop back in Lafayette for lunch with Eliz's family and to pick up Rives to take him to Mansfield. He was on his way to see his grandparents.

We stopped at this innocuous little place in Sunset, LA whose name I can't remember, Jacquelin's Diner I think. It appeared, from the outside, to be a run down, greasy-spoon diner. But, inside it was in good shape with an impressive cajun menu. Entrees like shrimp and grits, softshell crab, fried catfish, and my choice, Tuna Steak with veggies and potato cake. Nothing says yummy like a seared, cajun spiced tuna steak. It was very tasty and I lamented it's departure after my last bite. Definitely a place I recommend. Eliz, Pico, Rives, and myself all loaded up the car to come back home.

You can see all three of them out

With in ten minutes there were three sleeping bodies in the car. First one out was Pico, with a characteristic deep sigh and he was gone. Then with a yawn and a tilt of the head Rives was out. Eliz hung on as long as she could (like I said ten minutes) and she slipped into slumber. I was able to crank the radio up, set the cruise, and relax in the quiet sunshine most of the way home. As we took our exit Rives woke up, pleasant after a two hour nap, we dropped him off at Eliz's parents houses, spent some time with them, and finally made it back to our house. A soccer game later that night kept me from going to sleep early, but nothing kept me awake after it was done. It was a long, wonderful, and exhausting weekend. I look back at it wondering where it went, but thankful for family and fun.