Annie-mated Adventures with the Birthday Girl

Thanks to COVID and our working schedules, Mark and I haven’t really left Illinois (or really our house) much at all. But when summoned (and asked by the adorable Annie herself) for Baby’s Birthday Bash we knew we’d have to make the trek up. It was a bit awkward given the aforementioned schedules but Mark managed the 5 hr drive while I desperately finished the paper I needed to send my PI. 
The weekend was full of delicious food, entertaining movies, many of my favorite Ann Arbor jaunts (Vault of Midnight, what what!), an ever-improving D&D game with Mark running it, terrific costumes, and lots of Kennedy family time. 
 
Some of my favorite moments were the ones I spent with the birthday girl herself. During those times where people were off doing their own thing, and I was between meetings, I hung out with the Annie and Everett. As none of my blood related sisters have children (my sister’s cats do not qualify however she may protest), it’s such a unique experience to me to have nieces and nephews. Watching Annie grow and develop her own thoughts and opinions is super fascinating. I remember when she was a wee smiley babe in Ireland and now she’s here explaining her love of Princess Peach to me while we “hike” the stairs.
 
Anyways, one moment happened when it was just me, Annie and Everett. We had all just gotten our itineraries with flashing lanyards, and Annie wanted to show me her very cool new space night light that she had gotten. Everett wanted to tag along so we went upstairs to their room and Annie showed me all the settings on her light (blue is her favorite). And then we all turned on our lanyards and danced to silly songs on my phone (I Like to Move It- specifically the Madagascar version; Dynamite-BTS, and Cry About it Later-Katy Perry). Brother even got into the spirit by providing strobe lighting in the form of rapidly (for him) turning the overhead light on and off. [Ah such a throwback to my pre-Mormon days of latenight dancing in Rick’s when the lights come on and it’s awkward as heck, people much shorter than me flailing like children. This was much better because they were in fact toddlers and not friends I had to worry about.] So we danced and laughed in the flickering lights and then ran down to Mark (right at the tail end of the meeting) and included him in the party too. 

Another moment was when Annie decided she wanted to play as adventurers. So cue me finding a bag for all of our "supplies" so we could carry them to our campsite at on the second story balcony from our current base in the basement. She grabbed all the "snacks" we would need (aka golfballs), keys for mysterious things, a magical orb/bouncy ball, and a few other essentials. We spent the time running up and down the stairs and facing fearsome beasts like dragons (Roxy) and lions (Jakey). I had to fight everything not to fall asleep on the floor when we were "camping". Overall it was a very sweet and funny time to adventure. 

 

The last moment with Annie was when I was playing my Animal Crossing game. If you’re not familiar with Animal Crossing New Horizons, it’s basically a game where you play as a human living in a world with animal neighbors. In this iteration you have an island that you invite your animal friends to live on and make it whatever you want. Annie has a deep love of going to the museum and taking pictures of the shark tank (because it is rad). But in this case I was working on organizing some stuff so I was showing her all my new islanders. She was very excited about the cute black cat, the silly dragon, and pretty pink wolves,  but the true winner was my newest (and personal favorite) islander, a blue sparkly unicorn named Julian. We ended up spending the time laughing at all the Halloween costumes they were wearing, giving out virtual candies, and using the special Halloween emotes to scare/haunt the animal friends. She had a lot to say about spooky Jack the pumpkin clad figure who gave out special halloween prizes (mainly how she didn't like his pumpkin head).  

 

It’s been a very cool experience for me to watch a little kid grow from tiny baby to fully thinking (and quite rational at times) kid. I’m so excited to see where she goes from here!