Was fuer ein Tages!

That's a German expression we say around here to exclaim, "What a day!" Yesterday certainly qualified.
 
At Noon, Carey hosted a "Celebrate our Backyard" party with our neighbors and a couple close friends. She shocked me in advance by saying 40+ people were coming and chastised me for only buying a 24-pack of frozen burgers from Costco, but it all worked out in the end. We grilled all the burgers and still had five left, supplemented by two dozen hot dogs. The kids ran around the backyard for hours, getting in all sorts of trouble, most of which I didn't visually document. Sidewalk chalk wasn't adequate. They had to mix it with water and make "paint." Water balloon tossing wasn't wet enough. They had to fill Solo cups with water and dump them on each other. And there are at least three Styrofoam stomp rockets in my gutters.

After the five-hour party, our kids got cleaned up and went home with the Haydens for Charlotte's "fake" birthday party. She was born on Sept. 8, but every year her parents have the party in late August before school starts, ostensibly so more kids can attend. But this year Charlotte through them for a loop and said she wanted to have a party in her backyard and she only wanted one person on the guest list -- Lincoln David Merrill. A little negotiating got Greta invited as well and I'm told they settled down to sleep in their backyard tent at about 10:45 p.m.

Meanwhile, Carey and I caught "Blue Jasmine" with a theater full of people older than us and had a post-movie drink at a Maplewood place called "Coda."

Like I said, was fuer ein Tages!