It was held at a Pizza place similar to Chucky Cheese's but on a much grander scale. This place (America's Incredible Pizza Company) is huge. The party was for a boy just turning 5. There were at least 30 4-6 year olds and their parents in attendance. The kids had all the pizza they could eat, all the drinks they could drink, ice cream, cup cakes, and cookies. Meanwhile the parents could go eat at the buffet, complete with all kinds of pizza, mac and cheese, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, tacos, nachos, salad bar, spaghetti, etc, etc., etc. and ice cream and cookie pizzas for dessert plus all the drinks you wanted. All this was part of the birthday package. One person was assigned to the party room just to keep the kids entertained and keep the food and fun going! After about 90 minutes in the party room the kids were given bags of candy and toys and a charge card kind of thing to go play the games in another huge room. They had 3 attractions and all the games they wanted on the card. Attractions included mini golf, bumper cars, bowling and I don't know what else but a lot! I can't even imagine how much this cost the parents.
Micah had to do sound that night at church so we had to leave before the games commenced. Not to worry, she still got her charge card that does not expire, and a whole bunch of tickets for prizes that she must have won while I was in another room eating pizza, and her bag of toys and candy. I just glanced into the game room and noticed it went on forever! Huge! Being a Saturday afternoon there were tons of parties and people there but it was totally organized so not frustrating at all.
I can't believe that birthday parties have grown to be so big although I kind of suspected it and encouraged my students to start themselves a business of doing birthday parties on weekends. They couldn't hold a candle to this kind of thing. Alyssa has been invited to swim parties that are organized so parents don't have to do the work and I have seen PJ's and other accessories for all invitees to a sleep over that cost lots of $$$$$, too. I kind of like doing my own thing and making an original cake and organizing my own fun things like scavenger hunts and stuff. I guess I'm glad my kids are grown and I don't have to feel obligated to do a huge big expensive do for each of their birthdays every year! Come to think about it, I don't even remember doing any birthday parties for my kids. I think I just took cupcakes to school which we all know is not politically correct anymore. I guess we just had family birthday parties with all the cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents and maybe a friend or two. And that's all I have to say about that.
This is Fiesta week in San Antonio and it is really a big deal. Alyssa doesn't even have school on Friday to give families a chance to attend the parade of flowers on the river! I guess businesses must close down too. Anyway, I will cover that in another post but here are some pictures we took at the children's festival in the rain that kind of kicked off the Fiesta (it was supposed to start on Thursday but was canceled due to pouring rain!)
A Hawk demonstration went awry when the hawk was scared of the big crowd and flew up on the side of the mall and hid for 1/2 hour while the man tried to get him down!
The hawk gets ready to take off!
The girls made "medals" to wear. Here Natalie shows hers
Samara wears her medal
Alyssa proudly shows off her medal
The man shows off a rare hawk that they are trying to reintroduce into Southern Texas
Penny, I am with you on this. My granddaughters get so many presents for their birthdays, I told my daughter to stash half of them away in the closet and save them for Santa next year. I think it is a bit over the top to get more birthday gifts than Santa can bring...not to mention the cost of this kind of birthday celebration.
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