Sunday

It was a delight.

I almost always feel like lying down afterward because I'm exhausted but it also is a highlight of my week.

We celebrated Anna's birthday, which is on Thursday.  (I should have taken some pictures of the celebration/group.)

Here are some of the things that delighted me:

Anna's sister Natalie came.  I hadn't met her before and really liked her (not surprisingly).

Leif and Freja arrived and Leif had apparently not believed Braeden when he told him he and Anna were engaged because he had told him on April 1 and Leif thought it was "the perfect setup."

"What?!?" Freja said.  "You're engaged!  I had no idea!"  She hugged them both with tears in her eyes.  Then she told Braeden she would have been upset with him if it hadn't happened. That is how much everyone loves Anna.

Earlier in the day, I had shown Adam a suspiciously still clump of animal fur in the front flower bed.  Was it dead?  No one in our family is tough enough to willingly approach and deal with a potentially dead animal.  Then I remembered Desi and Liberty would be up to the challenge.

It turned out to be a cat and it left so crisis averted.

But Desi and Liberty said they would have been happy to deal with it.  These are the kinds of people I need in my life!

We had a really great gospel discussion led by Adam.  Those kids have good insights.

Despite being too tall for the cover (which I discovered only when I placed the cover on so I knew the top frosting would stick), the cake turned out OK.  Anna's favorite is red velvet and I was going to buy a cake because I hadn't ever made a red velvet cake that didn't taste like food coloring.  Emma told me that a homemade cake would be much more meaningful.  So I did it.  And it tasted pretty good.  I scooped the frosting off the inside of the cake cover and patched the frosting.  (So it tasted better than it looked.)

When we gave Anna her presents, someone said, "Is it time for gifts or gifs?"

So then everyone pulled out their phone and sent her a gif prior to her opening her gifts.  I think it should be a new tradition.

There was a little bit of time before they needed to head back.  We decided not enough time for The Great British Baking Show (which every one of us loves) but enough time for a game.

We played After the Manner of the Adverb.  Mark said he didn't know what an adverb was.  I said, "I taught you that!"

He said, "Apparently not."

Desi said, "The same kids can learn different things from the same homeschool."

I said, "Yeah, Mark.  Emma knows what adverbs are."

(Although to be fair she was probably born knowing what adverbs are.)

It is a recipe for success to play After the Manner of the Adverb with uninhibited and theatrical college students with big vocabularies.  (And an uninhibited and theatrical 16 year old with a big vocabulary even though he had to be reminded what an adverb is.)