Snakes, Sneakers, and Turning Seven

I think Colin's Birthday went well. We decided to forgo the monster parties we have thrown in the past. We sat down and talked about it with the kids and let them know we will do a party sometimes and sometimes we will just spend a special day with family. While there are lots of reasons for doing this, for us the big issue is it's hard to throw together a party when you have just moved to a new country. Who do you invite? Where do you get party supplies? It's not like I can grab the yellow pages and look it up. Something that was a pain to get together back in the states becomes completely overwhelming. Colin isn't feeling too bad though, most of his friends back home have had their parties cut way back as well, for a variety of reasons so he is in good company.

Instead of a party we took him shopping on Saturday to buy a new pet and shoes. Guess which one he liked better? If you were a seven year old boy which would you like better, new school shoes or a snake named Ribbon?




Sunday, on his actual birthday, we went for a family hike in Oberursel and found a prehistoric Celtic settlement site.  More accurately  we found signs pointing the way to a prehistoric site. We didn't actually make it all the way to the settlement this time. We had to pick up Cody from his leadership weekend and decided to arrive early for some hiking, but that put us on a time schedule so now we all have our fingers crossed for decent hiking weather next weekend.

When we arrived home I cooked the birthday dinner Colin requested: fish sticks, macaroni and cheese, and canned spinach. I think the menu may have been chosen less for what Colin likes and more for what Alonzo hates. Certainly Colin looked pleased with himself when Alonzo saw dinner laid out on the table. Poor Alonzo! Cake and ice cream made everything better.  Colin asked for a chocolate vanilla cake with chocolate dipped strawberries.  I tried my best.  Colin was a bit disappointed that a last minute request to change it to ribbon snake cake was not honored but these things take planning and I already had a pile of chocolate dipped strawberries.