Growing through Fire: Visit with the kids

Today I had a wonderful visit with my kids. There is very little season left in which to enjoy the park, so we are enjoying the park. I try very hard to get pictures of the kids every time I go, but Abi so rarely holds still that it makes it difficult to get a good photo. Regardless, I snapped several blurry photos of the kids when I had my hands free (Zoe is always holding one of them reluctantly).
I arrived at the park a few minutes early and had a nice short conversation with my sister, in which she made a very feeble attempt to veil the lack of desire to see me, even when I was going to be much closer to her in a month. I asked her to come see me in San Francisco when I go next month, and she said she couldn't because she would be in Montana visiting Race and my stepdad with her boyfriend. I'm glad she is visiting them, but it hurts to know that she hasn't made any effort to see me at all in the past 10 years unless someone else paid for it. Even when she was in Colorado, she didn't come to see me. She went to see my kids, which is nice. She then lied and said she was never here to begin with. It hurts.
Anyway, back to the kids. I watched them pull up, Dave in another car this time. It is good that this car is better than the last one, a 1980's green dented BMW with a pole holding the front drivers seat upright and more food & trash on the floor than metal in the frame. This one is a tan Buick LeSabre, about 20 yrs old, with leather interior and none of the carseats properly fastened to said leather interior. Sebastian easily moved Abi's carseat 12-18 inches away from the back because it was crowding him. I had a mild panic attack. I cannot pretend that I don't harbor ill feelings towards my family at this point, but I won't let that alter my life. Too much.
The kids were excited to see me and jumped out of the car. Sebastian shared some Harry Potter jelly beans with me and they were, indeed, gross. I believe they came out of the car's ashtray to begin with, but the flavors didn't help either. We went to the table and sat, but the kids said they weren't hungry, so we went to play.
Side-note: It is very difficult to go play at a park with your kids for a mere 90 minutes per week whilst under the scrutiny of a biased observer. Do anything that she regretted doing when her kids were little and you'll see it on your report next week. Do anything that she deems anything other than perfect-parent-performance, and it ends up in your report as a weakness to be worked on. It's annoying. It's terrible. No parent should ever experience this without cause or reason. We had an extra observer today, Dorothy Rinderle. Dorothy is CASA and has her own agenda. I've caught her in lies but it doesn't matter. She doesn't care about ethics, she cares about her agenda. She is easily swayed by charm and my brother has a lot of it.
We played on the playground for almost the whole time. It was wonderful! Abi and Zoe wanted to go up the slides, so we played leapfrog. One comes down, I lift the other out of the way onto the top of the slide so she can slide down next. We played together with Sebastian, it was all so wonderful! I love my kids :-)
Zoe thought it would be hilarious to try to run to the road. She also thought it was fun to flip herself to the ground while I was holding her hand. Big smiles! It was lovely! We climbed, played monster, played leapfrog, kissed boo-boos, hugged, and the potty adventure began. Sebastian went his way, and I went with the girls to the ladies. Zoe went first (she's nearly potty trained!) and then Abi, and sebastian waited at the door as soon as he was done.