French apartment renovations, Day 487: Happy birthday (party) Dio!

12,227 steps

We celebrated Dio's birthday today with a group of his friends. (His birthday is in 3 more days.) Imagine a group of 9 adolescent boys all crowded into our apartment, goofing off and being 12- and 13- year olds. It was fun and noisy and great for Dio, who missed celebrating 2 birthdays in a row due to Covid.

We had planned an outing to the skatepark, despite rain the forecast. It wasn't raining when we headed out, but the rain started and didn't stop for the rest of the day. By time we arrived, the skatepark was closed but a little soccer field next door was open. Eric and the boys and Inga played for a while in the rain, then came back for lunch, cake, and presents.

Normally the party was supposed to end at that point (4 hours in) but then they all decided they wanted to do an archery combat game. It's a 2-team game, kind of like laser tag or paint ball, only with bows & arrows (safe ones, tipped with big pieces of foam). Inga begged to come along and had lots of fun.

Despite very little time, I was able to pull together a skatepark cake with a half-pipe, complete with graffiti. We would have covered the whole thing in graffiti but we didn't have enough time.

While the boys (and Inga) were away shooting arrows at each other, I walked to a furniture thrift store. I didn't find anything quite perfect but it's fun to look. My feet were soaked by time I got home. I'm ready for warmer drier weather! We're still having to hear our apartment and it's almost May.