Good Monday morning, all!
Went to my GD's birthday party yesterday - great fun. It was held in a public library's large, open space meeting room - at least 1200 square feet. We set up the tables, chairs, food (taco bar), games, crafts, etc. Great price for the space: $50 for 3 hours. (1 for set up, 2 for the party.) Clean up was a breeze.
In keeping with the library theme, crafts included decorating blank bookmarks and lightweight canvas library bags to take home. The candy favors were little bags of gummy "bookworms." It was all very clever - kids and adults had a great time.
Couldn't have fire in a library building, obvs, so no candles on the cake. Then one of my DILs pulled up something on her phone that showed a lit candle - when GD blew on the screen, the candle went out! Who knew such things even existed? (Turned out nobody there except DIL!)
Fire update: The weekend rainstorm has fully (or nearly so) extinguished the Los Angeles area fires. Although the rain triggered a few isolated mudslides in recently burned areas, none are catastrophic. Some road and local schools are closed for a day or two until emergency crews sort out the problems.
It has been a very difficult few weeks for Los Angeles. I'm grateful to all here who checked on me, worried over me and other Angelenos, prayed for the fire fighters, and empathized with the people who suffered terrible losses from these wildfires.