We were down at Lone Tree Rec Center again this year — why give up on a good thing (and Katherine was calling the shots there). Total of 12 kids, only four of whom were girls, which meant tons of capering-about, top-of-lung-screaming third-grader hi-jinx.
Hilarity, photo ops, and migraine ensued.
The kids stayed in the pool about an hour, then were slowly herded back to the party room, wherein was served to them slices of very bad pizza (like Chuck E Cheese quality, only slightly cooled off) and then blocks of very mediocre sheet cake.
(Note to self for next year — if Katherine wants another party there, we will do it on our own, rather than pay for the party room. Though having a dedicated party assistant wasn’t a bad thing.)
Katherine got some great gifts, including someone’s whole Pokemon collection (!) and some Nerf guns I would have given a finger for back when I was her age.
The second hour of the party took a bit less than the first, but we discovered (unfortunately) that the kids could not be let back into the pool if it was after 8:30 and their parents weren’t there. So the adults started breaking down the party decor (third year’s usage of tropical theme stuff from De’s murder mystery, plus monkeys), the kids ran around a lot (though maybe not quite as vigorously as before), and we were out of there by about quarter of 9.
Party favors this year were deucedly clever, if I do say so myself (well, on Margie’s behalf, since it was her idea). Rather than a bag of cheap tchochkes, we got some cheap pool tchochkes — splash balls, torpedoes, squirt guns — and let the kids play with them in the pool, then take them home with them. Yay.
Overall, Katherine was quite happy, we were quite tired, and so we begin the week or two of Katherine Birthday Celebrations. Huzzah!