birthday party time!!

My memory is as poor as ever, but I believe that this was the first ever *birthday party* that we’ve ever hosted. We’ve had Harry Potter parties, Ralph’s World parties, Easter parties, ice cream parties, swim parties, winter solstice parties, and so on and so forth. But up until now, I’ve managed to avoid having a “birthday party”. I like to celebrate the girls, but the party trappings have always bothered me. Presents, goodie bags, big bouncy houses, over the top madness.

I’ve loved the years that we’ve been out of the country (France, Turkey, etc.) for birthdays. Those days are etched in our memories as the “best ever”. Especially when Chloe completed her Absolutely Mindy birthday missions while just up the street from Ephesus in Turkey. That night, we were the crazy Americans, and it just felt right.

But this year, this year we’ve become terribly mainstream. Chloe is in, *cough*, school of all places. We live in a place that doesn’t fit-like-second-skin (Pine Lake did). We work, we go to school, we are now mainstream (despite our hippie VW poptop Evie).

And along with that, we had a BIRTHDAY PARTY. A pool/pizza/sleepover party. And Chloe, turning double-digits (say what?), loved it. LOVED the cultural normal-ness of having a gaggle of giggling girls over to our (small) home. Swimming, pizza, ice cream cake, gifts. (All awesome local or totally hip gifts, none of the crud I’ve been avoiding.)

I didn’t kill myself as in the past with homemade, organic pizza and cake. We had watermelon, crudite (Chloe says, “What’s that?”), local pizza, a little lemonade. We swam in the rooftop pool. Laid-back, low-stress, so fun.

More pics: chloe’s ten – 6-7 jul 2012.

pool party - 6 jul 2012

cake - 6 jul 2012