A pretty good year so far...

I give myself a pass on the diet and exercise plan for most of the month of May. While I join the nation in saluting the troops, past and present, it seems like there's no end to non-service related celebrations. There's high school and college graduations -- congrats to Annie, Kaitlyn, Aleksey and all the other grads. 

We also had Alison's birthday, which stretched throughout the month due to interruptions with her play practices and performances, which meant lots of nights out for her parental units.

And then, of course, for those of us in Indianapolis, there's that race and the Pacers are still sort of in the play-offs.

So June might see me hitting the zero-point soup pretty hard, but I'm OK with that.

The Friday before Memorial Day is Derby Day at work, which is a lot of fun but not a diet day. It also coincided with Book Club for me that night, so a day of excess finished with even more. 

While I was off with my friends, Jeff and Alison saw Godzilla. The movie must not have been as great as book club because I've talked a lot about my night but I've heard little about the Asian monster.

Jeff did say that Alison held his hand while they did a little post-movie mall ratting and told him that she was having a great night. He'll carry that high for a while, I suspect.

Saturday started with Angie's List garden planting for me and then a marathon session at Carribbean Cove. The indoor water park has been the venue for many a birthday gathering. Chlorine and children's squeals and screams are heavy in the air there, and I really didn't think it would hold the girls' attention long. 

"We'll stay as long as you want to," I made the mistake of saying. Jeff took the first tour while I gardened and did yard and house work. We switched off and he took care of Saturday chores.

Nearly seven hours after they first dipped toes into the water, I finally lured them out of the water with talk of Flying Cupcake. Jeff fixed burgers and brats and they decamped to the basement. It seemed like an OK thing to accept the neighbor's offer of a beer across the street and a few minutes of the Pacers-Heat game. 

Unfortunately, one of the parents came by while Jeff and I were off-site. If I got the story right, the dad walked in to the house and was talked into taking another drive around the neighborhood before the daughter had to go. I didn't notice him until that second pass so I hot-footed it across the street, thinking the second girl wouldn't be lingering much longer. I never made it back to the neighbor's.

Personally, I think leaving 13-year-olds unattended while you are just across the street isn't a terrible parenting moment. Yes, I'm preparing my defense in case that family was aghast. It was a dad pick up so I think I'm probably OK. 

We'd planned to head over to Amy and Tom Tokash's annual race party after we were down to just Jenna and Ali. Turns out, we'd have arrived to a played out bash, so it was good we stayed home.

We spent Sunday at Lynn Sinex's lake house with Team Vielee. It was great weather and drinks and food and company. 

On one pass tubing, Jenna claims she hit a wave just right and was flung 8 feet into the air. Another fine parenting moment. But she liked it. She wanted to do it again. Really. 

I might have Jeff on the cusp of being ready to seriously think about the possibility of having our own little get-away. Anyone who helps me get him over the hump will have an automatic invite down.

We dragged ourselves home smelling like trout and cordite from a short fireworks display. 

I showered and I made Jeff shower too, but the girls dropped into bed like stinky stones. As they weren't sleeping with me, I didn't care. And they were too worn out to care much. They were pretty stinky, though. 

Our last non-sleepover girl had left around 11 Saturday night. Knowing they had a day of lake water ahead of them, I thought they'd be OK not to shower off the Carribbean Cove chlorine fest. To say they were ripe by Sunday night would be a kindness.

They showered for a long time this morning before our fancy brunch out with Aunt La, which I could see becoming an annual tradition. It was a great end to a fabulous weekend. 

The other day Alison said 13 was shaping up to be a pretty good year for her. I'm going to have to agree. Cross your fingers that it stays this way.