Break Even

It was something I calculated pretty early on.  Five.  That’s our break even age.  She’s been ours as long as she wasn’t. 

It seemed so far away then, but here we are.  Today my baby turned 5. 

What a transformation this girl has made.  She LOVES school.  She spends all her nights telling us how to spell things, practicing her letters and numbers, and asking us to write addition problems for her.  She is very bright.  She is never, ever quiet.  If she is, it’s not good.  It’s the one toddler trait we have not shed.  If she is not getting your attention, she’s going to find something naughty to do(because then she’s got your attention again:). 

She is a bundle of joy.  She finds joy in everything.  She loves to play outside.  She loves her family.  She says all the time, “I love you mommy.  I love my whole family”.  When she says family, she means more than just the…hmmmmm, I was about to say blood relatives, but none of us are to her.  I guess that illustrates the point even more.  If you show her love, she will love you back.  She’s the tangible object of all my good intention.  Happy birthday my sweet beautiful girl.  I love you so much my heart bursts to think about it.

And just like that…

We’re all grown up. 

This weekend we celebrated Mark’s 25th high school reunion.  On Friday we had Mark’s “group” over to the house.  Some of them are local, and some are not.  Todd was one of Mark’s best buddies, and he and his wife and 4 boys live in Ohio now.  We’ve seen them on a few big occasions over the years.  Funerals, graduations, a random holiday.  It was awesome to have the whole weekend with them catching up.  We all made a big realization.  We are now the age our parents were when we were getting married.  For the record we married young:)  Nevertheless, we’ve stood the test of time and now live real grown lives with real grown up responsibilities.

The whole night came together a bit disjointed, and yet it couldn’t have been better!  Mark had a list and day by day it grew.  We started with just the high school crowd and no kids.  The night before we added kids and a few of our more current group, because after all, why not? 

We ended up having so much fun!  We made lots of promises not to let so much time go by before connecting again.  I always really mean those promises, but it seems so hard to follow through with!  We all are in the same boat…teenagers in our house ruling our schedules!

Speaking of that, Todd hasn’t seen Adrienne since she was 4.  It was at Mark’s mother, Betty’s, funeral.  He was close to Betty and misses her lots.  He started talking to Adrienne and ended up crying because he said she reminds him so much of Betty! 

Friday night was a big success, and we would have felt complete if that was the real reunion!

It really was just the start though.  The guys golfed all day Saturday and the real reunion was Saturday night.  They came in second place golfing(not sure how that happened).  Mark got home just in time to change and we were off to pick up Todd and Betsy!

Betsy has Todd trained.  When she says, “Watch my purse”, he takes it seriously.

You just have to excuse the crappy pictures.  Bar light, flashes, and moving people makes for crappy pics.

On the way home we channeled a small piece of our youth with a stop at Wendy’s.  Then Sunday we were full circle back at the realization that we’re old.  Well maybe not that old, but too old for a whole weekend of that much fun.