A 90 Year Party!

On Saturday evening we drove up to my old stomping grounds to celebrate the 90th birthday of my childhood parish - Our Lady of Lourdes.  This is where I was baptized, received First Holy Communion, and was confirmed. 

The parish school was also my elementary and junior high school.  As we were parking in the lot, I spotted one of our old desks.  I sat in this type of desk every year...
we put all of our books in the bottom and I always liked to clean mine out.  Silly, but I remember those "whole class clean out sessions" like they were yesterday.
After those photo ops we made it over to the auditorium where Emily found my picture among all of the graduating class photos.
Then we wandered outside - these were my seventh and eighth grade classrooms and the "ice cream store" (among other things).  We didn't have the picnic tables or the gardens... I think they are nice additions.
Eventually we made it out to the tables and Emily couldn't let the band's warm up pass without some dancing!
We were too late for mass but joined Mimi for the tail end and then headed back down again for the party to get started.  We had a really great time seeing so many people from the past (some you will recognize as still a big part of our present too).  

I decided to do my own little "pop-up video" of sorts, giving a little background info. on some...






Emily will, I hope, enjoy knowing those tidbits down the line but that night she was only interested in DANCING!  Even if it meant dancing all by herself.
Luckily, she wasn't alone for too long and was soon joined by others...
including Daddy...
and Mama.
The Hokey Pokey was right up her alley...


and she even made a new friend.
This little 6 year old really wanted to dance with Emily and they would hold hands between songs...
before lighting the floor on fire again.
I wasn't the only one taking pictures... they drew a lot of attention.
By the end of the night Emily was wiped out and sweaty.  We thought for sure she would crash on the way home - with being snuggly in her jammies and all.
Nah - wide awake at 10:30 when we got home.  She did crash soon after though.

Happy Birthday, OLL!  It was SO fun to be able to join the party!