To Ellie, to Ellie, ...

There's a little girl around here who has been singing a certain song all day. It goes like this. "Happy birthday to Ellie, to Ellie, to Ellie. Happy birthday to Ellie, to Ellie, ..."

Ellie's dad has a light sunburn. He has spent an unusual (for him) amount of time outdoors working on her birthday present. A substantial portion of Ellie's swing set is finished. It is in its final resting location, though I suspect that 8 people together would be able to move it short distances yet if necessary.

She currently has two accessories installed. She has a slide, about which she is particularly excited. She also has a climbing rope, because her dad never had any upper body strength. I was always one of those kids in class who could never climb everything. I figure if she starts now, she won't be a wimp when she grows up. She likes the rope, although she needs help climbing it for now. Still the slide is her favorite. About 20 minutes ago, Ellie opened the front door, looked out, and said, "Happy birthday slide."

In fact, she played all day and just recently realized, "I don't have no swings." I told her that she would get some soon.

We had a small birthday party, which friends put together for us. The kids ran around and played while the grownups socialized. The favorite kid game was "playing car", in my car no less. I'm glad I keep the parking brake on well, because Ellie got in and promptly started shifting between the gears. It would have been pretty unfortunate if the car had rolled to the bottom of the hay field as soon as she hit neutral.