Aiden’s permanent floating birthday tour reached its pinnacle yesterday with a massive party of friends, family and more food than all of the friends and family of everyone who was there could eat in a week to ten days. David went all out for his favorite six-year-old, and the six-year-old responded by taking it all in and dazzling the multitudes.

To be honest, I didn’t see much of him. I got a hug when we got there, and another when we left, and a big smile when he opened the Darth Vader TIE Fighter Star Wars Lego set I got him (because that’s what he wanted, and it wasn’t the only Star Wars Lego set he got but it was the only Darth Vader TIE Fighter set he got, so there’s that). I saw a little more of Kylie, because every so often she ran out of other people to talk to and, well, there I was.

It’s hard for me to judge, not being a party animal myself, but it seemed to be a success. There were people of all ages and everyone was on good behavior, more or less. It reminded me (somewhat, not exactly) of the parties we used to have every June for David’s birthday, when he was growing up in that same house. He can’t have forgotten those days, and chances are that Aiden will remember his as well.

And he will get a lot of use out of the ton of presents he opened, especially the new bike his dad gave him. I expect he will be riding madly around the neighborhood any day now. That’s good practice, because he’s only ten years away from getting his driver’s license.

And I survived it as well, thanks for asking. I’m not comfortable with large crowds of people (even if I know most of them, and I only knew about half here), but I found safe harbor where it could be found, and I kept my usual low profile. Maybe that’s why most of the pictures I took seem to be from the angle you’d expect a fly on the wall to have. You can click the one above to see the set.