The Eye of Kris

Owen's 2nd birthday party could not have gone much better!

The playground was a big hit with the kids (and many of the adults). They ran and climbed and jumped and slid for about an hour or so. I was crawling around in there with a camera, and managed to get a few good photos of the kids playing, although it's hard to get good pictures in the close quarters with low light and so much movement. The playground was built to be big enough for adults to get in there with the kids, but there are still some tight spots to get through. I think just about all of the parents at the party (even mine) made it in there at some point, though.

There are a couple of really big twisty slides that go from the 4th and 5th levels all the way down to the floor. I made it one time to the top level (there's a lot of obstacles to get up there) and went down the longest slide, which was much faster than I expected. It turns out, our children's pastor waxes the slides every month or so! It was almost scary, but I don't think anyone got hurt.

I was worried that Owen would be a little scared of the size of the playground and wouldn't want to climb up in there, but he went right in. There were a few areas he didn't like too much, but he found the smaller slides and other spots he liked and just stayed in those areas.

After a while, I had to round everyone up for cake and ice cream (fortunately, there is a PA system), and then Owen opened his presents. He was so tired at that point that he didn't react much to his gifts, other than wanting to sit down an play with a couple of them while he still had more to open. I don't think he has ever gotten that many gifts at once, so it may have been a little overwhelming. He did pretty well, though, and we got them all done and sent the kids back to the playground for about 10 more minutes while we started to clean up.

We told the woman who was working there that it was a great place for a party, and well worth the price we paid to use it. Everything went very well and she was very helpful, and I would definitely recommend the facility to anyone else wanting to have a party like that.

The only real problem we had was that we had about twice as much food and drinks as we needed. Anybody want some leftover pizza?

Special thanks to Eric and Tisra for letting me use their Digital Rebel XT.