…Brooke celebrated her ninth birthday with a handful of her favorite friends.

They swam and urged passing cars to honk at them all afternoon, cheeky little things.

They feasted on Doritos and rainbow cake, too.

A few of the girls stayed on for a night at the baseball stadium. I forgot my camera–bummer! Then they talked me into night swimming. Well, into letting THEM swim at night. It was too chilly for me!

After they dried off and zipped up in their sleeping bags, they stayed up til 3am. Can you imagine? And they still had energy to paint their fingers and toes in the morning. Remarkable!

I barely had it in me to change in order to be decent when the fathers came to pick them up. What a difference 28 years makes!

Happy birthday, sweet girl! And may you be younger than me in 28 years.