Kaiya's Birthday

It's really a challenge to come up with a new and interesting idea for Kaiya's Grammie Birthday Date.  We have gone to tea a couple of the years, and I think she has really enjoyed that, but at this point it's getting to be old-hat.  When I ask her if she wants to tell me what she wants to do, or if she wants me to surprise her, she always answers that she wants me to surprise her.  But I can't shake the feeling that there's something she's HOPING I'll come up with.  This year I decided on a Star Gazing Party at Snowbird.  You go to the top on the tram, where they have a bunch of telescopes set up, and - I presume - someone who can tell us what we're looking at. 

Since the Star Gazing Party would involve a fairly late night, and since Steph was out of town, it was decided that it would be a sleep-over as well.  This was the first time (at least in Kaiya's memory) that she would be having a sleep-over at Grammie's without Teague, and she was pretty excited about that. 

We started by taking a trip to the library.  It's hard to keep Kaiya supplied with books to read because she reads so fast, and she's read everything I have several times.  When she asked me how many she could get, I told her however many she could read in 3 hours.  She ended up getting 10 chapter books, and got through most of them.

 

In the meantime, the weather was starting to look not so great.  The thing about going star gazing is that you have to be able to see the stars. 

We went to dinner at one of Kaiya's favorite places (Café Trang), and I knew that if the weather didn't improve by the end of dinner I was going to have to tell her that it's off.

 Sure enough, it was still cold, cloudy and drizzly at the end of dinner.  I asked if she wanted to go to a movie or something instead, but she said she really just wanted to go home.  She had been up late the night before, and I think she just wanted to get cozy and watch a movie at home.  So we stopped for cupcakes and headed home. 





We ended up getting a mani/pedi a few days later as an alternate Grammie Date.  Other than her feet being tickled, she loves getting a mani/pedi!  And the salon is really getting to know her.  The last time I went alone, and everyone wanted to know where Kaiya was. 

Later that weekend Steph had a family birthday party for Kaiya.  It's always fun to get together with everyone, especially when we get to enjoy Steph and Mickel's beautiful back yard and gorgeous views of the valley.