9 years old!

 You just turned 9 two days ago, can't believe it!  The Covid-19 pandemic is still going on, so we had to just celebrate at home, the three of us (Kevin now lives with Nana).  We started on 'birthday eve', with going to a butcher shop in Elk Grove Village to get steaks for dinner, then stopped at a couple of playgrounds for you to enjoy on the way home.  We also stopped at Barnes and Noble to pick up your birthday treat; you chose a chocolate chunk cookie.  You loved steak dinner that night, sans surprise.

On your actual birthday, you and I went to Mariano's to get donuts first thing in the morning.  After that, we came back, opened your presents, and you played with all of them right away (of course). There were 4: a snap circuits expansion, a gravitrax loop, a 3D cat lamp, and a 1000 piece domino set.  I made you a surprise with the dominoes--spelled out 'happy birthday' in cursive, which you loved.  I baked a cake for you...but when I went to frost it (a two layer round one), the frosting was too thick/heavy and it caused the cake to fall apart at the sides :( I was very upset, but determined to make you a dessert with the cat you had drawn as model for it, so I went for a pizza-sized chocolate chip cookie.  You had never had such, so you were skeptical, but you ended up loving it!  We didn't have that until the end of the day, though.

We went out for lunch at Wendy's, used one of the Frosty coupons Grandma Judy sent you (we got drive thru and ate at home).  You and dad played together while I baked the cookie after lunch. I had a lesson to do at 6pm, then a break at 7-8pm, during which we went to Georgio's to pick up a pizza (your choice for dinner :)). I did another lesson from 8-9; uncle Kevin called you during this time, and I overheard you telling him about how you were having an excellent birthday :D

Then we had your cookie for dessert.  The evening ended with you and dad taking a bath together, then we read some of the books at bedtime ("A Dog Named Grk" and "Two Dogs in a Trenchcoat Go On a Class Trip").  I hope we can make all your birthdays just as happy and great as this one.  Love you lots, mom.

Back home...after 10 weeks in France

We finally left France on Monday, which made 1 day shy of 10 full weeks there.  I think it's the longest I've ever stayed in a row, but not totally sure (been too many times now lol).  We started the day by waking up at 5:30am (well, I got up at 5:25 and let you sleep until 5:40), got everything prepped and Damien took us to the bus depot.  We arrived at 7:05am, so we had 25 min until bus departure.  The security people came over and gave Damien a mask, and we put on our cloth ones.  The bus arrived about 10 min later, and the driver was saying that the airport was closed...um, no, I argued with him, telling him that just a few days ago a friend of ours (Talia, the girl we had lunch with one day) took her flight from there.  He seemed to think I was lying and said there were no flights out of there right now.  Damien tried to find out in the train station, but they didn't know anything.  I looked it up on my phone and confirmed that our flight was listed on departures and we also had our boarding passes. 

I wrote the rest of the story in my record of the trip, which I will happily share with you when you are older and want to read about this.  I hope you remember this day, it was an historic one, and I hope we never have to repeat such craziness to get back home again!  It was not terribly difficult, just weird and unusual.