Happy Birthday to Kari*

Today is my baby sister Kari's 36th birthday. In honor of her birthday, I bring you a post about going to the park with her and Eric and Josh a few weeks ago. Kari is extremely paranoid about my posting pictures of Josh on the Internet so if you could all do me a favor and not kidnap him, I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, we went to the park and it was very fun. Kari's camera is not working so I got to take the pictures and went a bit insane. But, quite honestly, I have the most photogenic family in the world. Here, Eric and Kari bring Josh to the slide.



Josh doesn't look so thrilled about this sliding thing.



Since Josh did not look happy at all, I bring you a picture of Eric instead. The picture does not show him saying "Ow, ow, ow" as he slowly inched his way down. Apparently the slide was quite hot and he sort of stuck to it. You'll notice that his foot is in a cast. He broke his foot somehow. Please do not ask me how because I don't remember and Kari gets mad at me when I keep asking her the same stuff over and over again. She seems to believe that it means I don't listen to her when we all know that's not true. I'm just old and don't remember things.



Eric and Josh pause before going down the slide together. Kari will, quite smugly, compliment herself on the gorgeousness of her men folk. And yes, hey, they are attractive but where is the pity for the extremely single older sister? Huh? There is none.





As I said, Kari's camera is broken which is why you don't have a picture of me on the crane thing. But they are much fun and you get to dig around in the sand and it is almost like a power tool but not quite.



This is the small child that was fascinated with me. She came over and started talking to me and we had a fairly decent conversation considering that she is a) a small child and b) was talking to me in Spanish. I did manage to compliment her on her zapatas (I think that's shoes, right?) and thought she was quite adorable. Then her mother came over and gave me the look. You know the look, don't you? The one that says "Hey, freak! Why are you talking to my kid?" I think the small child was getting the lecture about talking to strangers as her mother led her away but I'm not sure because it was in Spanish.



Josh was a little crabby and Kari tried to entertain him in a couple of different ways.

Playing in the sand,



Climbing on the tower,



and going for a walk.



It turns out that he was kind of hungry and thirsty. I love this picture and how both Kari and Josh are looking the same way but I'm not sure what they're looking at. While Josh is a lot like Eric, he has many of Kari's mannerisms and characteristics as well (including the stubborness but don't tell her I said that).



He went back to playing after a snack and wanted to play on the bridge thing. Perhaps he will become a Star Fleet Captain someday.



Josh has this fascination with balls. He likes to come over and play with Eddy and even knows where the cat toys are hidden. I should rephrase this to he likes to come over and terrorize Eddy. It is fun to listen to Josh run after Eddy yelling "Kitty! Kitty! Ball!" Eddy then goes and hides in my bedroom which is off limits to the small child (because we would lose him in the mess). Anyway, I'm sure he's going to be a jock because Eric is quite the sports freak. I am envisioning many football games in my future (I actually hope he'll go more towards soccer. It's cooler and doesn't interrupt karaoke).



The fascination for balls led us into some trouble when we were leaving. Josh spotted a soccer ball across the park and headed off for it. Eric was quickly in pursuit.



Eric gains on Josh.



You have to love it when a child that is running away stops in mid-run, realizes that Mom isn't next to him and turns around crying for her. And then continues to run the opposite direction, still crying out for her. While Kari, Eric and I are all saying "Josh, Mommy's right there."



After the child has been captured, it is off to get something to eat because he is hungry and Lord, will he let you know it! We finally decide to get pizza (we would be Kari and I because Eric couldn't make up his mind and Josh was getting extremely cranky and Kari and I said "Fine. We're getting pizza" and ended up going to the first restaurant we saw when we first started discussing the food situation. Could have saved ourselves a good 20-30 minutes).

Josh has a unique eating style all of his own. Apparently he refuses to wear bibs so he gets a bit messy. Here is one of the pictures from our meal (good pizza, by the way. Not that I remember where it was or the name of the place). It amused me that he was eating the marinara sauce with his fork and knife. But completely ignored the lasagna and pizza. No, he's a marinara sauce gourmand, this one.



Anyway, I hope you all had a good day and Kari, that you had a spectacular birthday (we went to Mancini's tonight for steak. Not bad). I love you much, my beautiful little sister and am glad that you are a part of my life and that Eric and Josh are as well!

Kisses!




*Yes, I made the stupid doctor's appointment. Next week at 9:50 AM. Thursday, I think. Are you happy now, people?