Lucia turned eight on Saturday, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around where and how fast the last few years have gone. Facebook has a feature, "On this Day," which shows users their posts from past years, and the last week has been full of "little Lucia," and the incredible changes she's been through since she was a baby.
This year's party was skating on Saturday morning, and it really was a great time. Jack is an excellent skater and even has his own skates, and I think he was almost as excited as Lucia when the weekend rolled around.
The rink in Brentwood is extremely nice and conveniently situated on a side street away from the hustle and bustle of some of the busiest traffic and rudest drivers I've experienced in my life. Seriously, if you need to change lanes, pull out, or depend on common courtesy at all, Brentwood is not the place. Jack and I witnessed two separate close calls between our exit from I-65 and the skating rink - less than three miles - and they were both due to drivers being assholes. I've heard a lot of people say they drive huge SUVs because they want to be safe, but from my experiences in Williamson County, people drive huge SUVs to intimidate other drivers.
The traffic in the rink was far more polite. The early crowd was mostly little kids, families, and adults who appreciate that vibe. For awhile, it seemed that every little girl between the ages of eight and twelve were wheeling around the rink, but it was a good, friendly crowd. Everyone we encountered was nice.
Jack's first trip around the rink was a little on the wobbly side, but he got consistently better and faster as the morning passed and didn't fall a single time!
Lucia had a wonderful time with her friends, and thanks to the rink providing skating supports, little people like Beatrice are able to get in on the action. If they provided them for big people, I might have considered trying to go for a spin, but Mom and Cynthia are both already wearing orthopedic supports on their lower bodies, and I didn't feel like tempting fate.
Once the party was over, we headed to the Baby House for lunch with a quick stop at Lenny's Subs to pick up a sack of sandwiches per Lucia's request. Lenny's is one of the Vernon 4's favorite places to eat out, and after having a club sandwich from there, I can understand why. The meats and cheeses don't get sliced until you order your sandwich, the bread is fresh, and the two gentlemen who waited on us were friendly and took good care of us. The prices are very comparable to Subway, but the sandwiches are ten times better.
The cake was fantastic, too. Sis got it a a place called Everything Bundt Cake, and wow! It was delicious and beautiful.
Lucia got a nice pile of birthday loot with plenty of art supplies, a cool Vanderbilt hoodie, a neat doll, a fairy house dish garden, and several other cool goodies from her friends. I painted her a card with the famous "KiTTen" (and pink blanket) on the front, and she absolutely loved it. I thought she would like it, but her ecstatic reaction exceeded my expectations. She was tickled to death, and later that evening, Sis sent me a photo of the framed Kitten painting on the dresser in Lucia's bedroom.
Jack and I were exhausted at the end of the day, but it was the good kind of exhausted, and Jack wasn't even too sore the next day.
