We had a great weekend. Saturday, Cleo and I went to her school friend Angelina's 5th birthday party at KangaZoom. It's a fun bouncehouse not too far from our house. Cleo had a great time. She spent a lot of time with her school pal Braedon because Braedon and Cleo were the first kids to arrive (at 11am when the party was scheduled to start); all the other kids arrived around 11:45am.


Braedon has two mommies. I chatted with Braedon's more talkative mommy, Tracy. Her other mom is Shawn. Tracy went to Georgetown but grew up in Atlanta. I don't meet too many native Atlantans.

Braedon lives in our subdivision. Braedon turned 5 in Sept. but Atlanta's cut-off for kindergarten is in August so she's starting kindergarten in Aug. 2012, when Cleo starts (I know, can you believe Cleo is even anywhere close to attending kindergarten????AGH!!!!). The elementary school that Cleo & Braedon are zoned for is Deerwood Academy. It was named in the testing scandal but not as one of the worst offenders and the teachers identified were not permanent instructors there. The principal was named but supposedly she was recently cleared. On a very positive note, the school has a French language institute staffed by highly qualified people. And, in 2001, the school was awarded an International Baccalaureate Certification, which is highly sought after and provides for an enhanced curriculum. Deerwood also has a gifted program which Roger and I will ensure Cleo is enrolled in prior to her stepping foot in the school doors. All around, I am feeling better about the great likelihood that Cleo will have to attend public school.


Saturday evening, we had a spaghetti dinner gathering at Kim, Derrick & Kennedy Bell's house. Our pals Kevin, Keishe & their 3 kids joined us. They have a 4 year-old son, Bryce, and one year-old twins (Olivia and Lauren). It was really nice to see all of them.


Sunday, we went to Japan Fest. It's held at the Gwinnett Civic Center - around a 50 minute drive from our house. I got free tickets from work - my company had a booth for kids (basically bobbing for balloons with a little metal hook) and one of my company's subsidiaries had a booth. We got Sidney a little wooden snake that he enjoyed playing with. In the parking lot, koi sellers had set up so we saw super large goldfish and some little ones. Cleo and Sidney really enjoyed that. We went home for naps then out again to get Cleo a Halloween costume at Kids R Us. She selected an off-white Ariel gown - it was $15, not bad for a nice costume. We got her a tiara and wand too. We tried to talk her into a more glitzier pink one but she was set on the off-white one. We tried it on and she does look nice in it. We are hunting for a Percy costume. We have seen Thomas the Train ones. There are Percy ones for sale on-line but Roger is contemplating making one. More to come on that.


Sidney seems to be fully recovered from his Sept. 2 surgery. He's eating all sorts of things and seems happy and normal. He's chatting up a storm. He wants to play with Cleo a lot but then resists following her rules.


Have a good week.