Does my heart good

The girls were invited to a birthday party yesterday. Alex and I have known the family since before any of us were married or started having kids, and now their youngest child is in the same class as Robin at school.

This party was so much more down to earth than the ones my kids have been invited to recently. The girl and one of her brothers both had birthdays last week and each of them got to invite two friends. They have an older brother, and with Julia there were eight kids all together, four boys and four girls. Aside from the hosts, Alex and I were the only parents on hand.

It was the first time--I think ever--that I've been to a kids' party where the kids just ran around and played with each other. No fighting. No clowns or party games to lose at or prizes to cry over. The boys were watching Harry Potter when we arrived and the girls watched a Power Puff Girls movie after we had lunch (homemade pizza on store-bought crusts). The grownups sat and talked. When it looked like rain, we went out to the carport and did the piñata. Then we came back inside and it rained. We had cake and ice cream. The kids kept playing. The grownups kept chatting.

It was awesome, and that alone would have been enough. But what did my heart good was arriving and hearing my friend's husband say to Alex, "Oh! You're back! I didn't realize you were back already!" Hmm, I thought, I told Yobeth all about it on the phone when she called to invite us. I'm sure she must have mentioned it to him. And there she is, reminding him that she just told him about it on Friday.

We started across the yard and before we even got to the house for some reason we all ended up peering between some tree branches to see a softball-sized beehive just above head level. "Wow," says my friend's husband, "how long has that been there?" And I'm thinking, Long enough for you to have been made aware of it I'll bet. [Later confirmed by Yobeth, who warns him about it every time he cuts the grass.]

A little while later, Yobeth was putting the pizzas together and asked the guys to go out and get some ice cream and some beer. Arturo couldn't find his wallet and asked one of the kids, who had been comparing the photos on the different ID cards earlier in the day. The boy showed him where he had left the wallet, but it wasn't there. It was clearly somewhere in the house but just couldn't be found. Until Arturo checked his own desk drawer (for the second time) and found the pesky thing.

I just felt so at home with them. (Can I get an Amen?) I think all husbands were separated at birth.