Friday of Fun; A Visit from Coco

Last Friday was a great day!  Our dear friend, Coco, came to visit.  Hayes and I were so lucky to get to meet her Downtown for lunch!  We met at a place I had never been to before: Barcelona Tapas Restaurant.  It was such a treat--but best of all, we enjoyed our company.  She always has a gift of shoes for Hayes.  Yes, shoes.... he loves it.  He opened his gift at the table and was pleased to find a new pair of green wellies with a fun, colorful froggy pattern.  Right at that moment, he removed his other shoes and asked me to help him put his new boots on.  Coco also had a gift for me, as well--so generous, she is!  The tin box below is so Coco-and so me.  I just posted about my burdensome sentimentality... and she gifts me something that both enables by providing the space to keep little trinkets and ephemera and pokes fun with the wording, "Random Crap from here and there to there and here".  Hahaha-I love it!  So true!  She found this box and the adorable Russian nesting doll dish towel that was tucked inside(not pictured) at Silver in the City, one of the most fun places to shop in the city.

 

After lunch, we walked towards our vehicles... Hayes was a tired boy.  He insisted on walking backwards.  I did my best to allow it but when we weren't making any progress toward the van and he refused to hold my hand on a busy Downtown sidewalk, well, I had to just pick him up.  When we got to the van, I tried to put him in his seat.  That upset him.  He arched his back and said, "I don't want in my seat!  I want in Mommy's seat to drive!"  He wanted to drive.  I knew that his words were merely an expression of an exhausted two year old.  I had to smile-but then told him that he was being unreasonable.  I sat him in the back seat and explained to him that he was much too short, fourteen years too young and we needed to hurry up and catch up to Coco's convertible because we wanted to spend more time with her.  He wasn't in a changed mood, but, he stayed calm enough to get him set in his seat and buckled up.  He fell asleep on our way up to Broad Ripple, where, after I transferred him from his car seat to the stroller, he snoozed long enough for me to try on two cheapo dresses that were much too small and stroll for a bit in the sunshine.

It had been a while since Coco had been to her old 'hood.... one of her favorite stores to browse had turned into a panda(ology).  We looked around -but it was nothing like what had been there before... so after snapping this photo of Coco with the Gorilla, we were onto the next.

 We went into Frankey's for a gander at the designer merchandise.... expensive and lovely things.... and a nice sales associate named Linda.  She was stylish in her vest, fedora, glasses and wrap... she enjoyed meeting Hayes. 

 Before we went our separate ways, we had to snap a photo of the three of us... what a nice time we had!

 

After such a full day, already, there was time for shoveling in the garden with the new boots(which every time Hayes pulls them on, he says with a big smile, "Coco bought these to me."), flying around the yard in Dad's arms and a family bike ride... which, unfortunately, was cut short because the chain on Scott's bike broke.  Luckily, he didn't wreck--but he did bang his knee pretty hard... he was able to coast the bike back to the house and here it sits... we will be getting a new chain soon--because, family bike rides are the best!

Before we took off on our ride, Scott aired up his tires.... when Hayes saw that Dad was working on the bike, he ran and grabbed his tools out of his tricycle's storage box and began working on the bike, too.

After all of the fun of the day, I was able to head out of the house on my own to meet up with some girlfriends to celebrate a birthday.  The birthday girl, Lauren, is getting ready to move to Spain and she writes all about it, here.  It is pretty neat stuff and will get even more romantic when she gets to her destination.  I think it is great that she is documenting this whole experience from the beginning!

It was nice to visit and have a glass of wine and some yummy red velvet cake prepared by Anna.

After I left that sweet gathering, I headed Downtown again to visit the hotel party for Coco on the 30th floor of the new and upscale JW Marriott.  It was winding down by the time I got there-but it was a glamorous time.  The blurry photo of the State House is shot from the window of the room.  My Samsung Solstice phone just can't hang with the low light situation.