Happy Un-Father's Day

Eden woke up this morning....found out it was NOT Father's Day....and said,

"Mom, you should title your next post 'Happy Un-Father's Day'."

My most faithful readers are probably my children.

I figured that I'd have to decide if I was going to pretend today was Father's Day or save it all for the REAL Father's Day.

The choice was made for me.

While getting ready for church, there was a knock on our door.

*Knock. Knock.*
(Answer door to Luisa, the best neighbor EVER.)

"Sorry such late notice, but we are having a surprise retirement party 

for Jeff at the clubhouse at 3:00 and wanted to invite you.  

I kept wanting to invite you earlier but I never got the chance."

Then off to church we went.

We were late because Leila left her primary talk at home, so we had to turn around mid-drive.

We came in right as they were passing the sacrament and opted to sit in the hall today.  Tyson didn't come because he got less than two hours of sleep last night and needed to sleep.

That's when I met a new friend, Along.

Along and her family are from Africa.  They aren't members of the church but their oldest son, Agok who is ten, recently decided to be baptized.  She brings the rest of her family to church and supports Agok.  I found out they have kids close to all my kids' ages and by the end of sacrament meeting, I made a new friend and the kids were possibly a lot more crazier than I probably should have let them get during sacrament.  But I'm assuming that since Along isn't used to going to church and the classic "sit still and be quiet" method isn't ingrained into their non-Mormon brain that she didn't find much harm in it.  We weren't terrible. And when they did start to get a little too rowdy, we had them tone it down.

By the end she invited me over to their house around six or seven to have cake and celebrate Agok's tenth birthday today.  I told her I wasn't sure because of the other party I was supposed to go to but that I would contact her and try to come.  All I knew is that they haven't been here long, don't really like Kansas City that much, and feels like she doesn't really have a lot of friends around.  So, I wanted to be there for her.

She wanted to show me how to get to her house because she didn't know her address or how to explain how to get to her place, so she asked me to meeting after church and follow her to her house to show where she lived.

Leila gave a talk in primary.
I was in nursery.
I met up with Along to follow her to her place.

We drove and she INSISTED I come in for some water because it was such a hot day (95 degrees is way too hot for me).  I came in for a small minute, but had to get home for Jeff's surprise party.

We all went to Jeff's retirement party, which was a blast.  They know how to party.  Lots of really good food, balloons for the kids, cake and ice cream, and just good company.  They are so nice and friendly.  They often have parties with lots of family and they invited us to come join them many times as well.  I love how their family is so welcoming and unafraid to just invite extra people to a family party (they also invited their dentist and his family along...which we found out also happens to be our dentist).  And they make sure to have PLENTY of food so no one could ever go home hungry, in fact, they will almost always give us leftovers to take home.

Us with the Officially Retired Man

We left the party with smiles on our faces.

I was trying to decide if we should go to this other party since we had already had cake and ice cream and we would have spent approximately a half hour at home before we had to leave to go to the next place.

I decided to go.

I'm so glad I did.

I came and when I pulled up, Along came out to meet us saying, "I'm SO grateful that you came to the party!  I was so afraid that you wouldn't be able to make it!"

She and her friend continued to make us feel loved.

They gave us water, soda pop, and the kids a Capri Sun.  Talked to us about how to braid and bead hair (and said that we should come over and they could do it to my girl's hair sometime), taught me a little about Africa, and just made me feel at home.

They gathered a few other neighbors to help celebrate and they had cake.

You could tell their birthday culture wasn't the same.

They had a cake, cut into it (realizing after that usually you sing Happy Birthday first), then sang the song (realizing after they never lit the candles), and then just decided to cut the cake (never have lit the candles or blown them out).  But everyone was totally fine with it, no big deal.  It was just fun.  Very laid back and happy.

We invited them to Leila's birthday party on Friday.

They insisted on sending me home with leftover cake and even snuck in a Coca-Cola into the bag (which is funny because I don't even like it, but they wanted to be extra nice and just give something extra to us).

Eating cake....for the second time.

My new, adorable little friend, who is a little older than Paige but is a head taller with a full set of teeth.

The birthday crew....at least the ones who weren't too busy playing in the other room.

It was a great night.  I learned a lot and I wish to be more like both families we spent time with.

But it definitely was NOT Father's Day.

Guess that's next week's party.