How's it goin', folks.
So we've finally entered the
Teenage Years as a family: the Cannonball turns
13 this week (on this Wednesday, coming up), which is scary to think about. Time
definitely speeds up as your kids get older. As we did with her sister before her, we realized Alayna didn't want anything this year for her birthday (because she didn't
need anything for her birthday, the kid's spoiled), so we went with the 'experience' route once again. Instead of repeating the
hotel room ploy we did with Abby, Kris decided to rent out a gigantic,
20-ft tall waterslide bounce house instead.
No, seriously.
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| (L to R: Ellie, Amelia, Ella, Cannonball, Alivia, and Halle.) |
We got our hands on a
voucher awhile back, and while the rental was still pricey, it wasn't
too much above what we'd drop on birthday presents and the cost of a venue-centered party once the discount was factored in.
Originally, we had thought of this idea for Abby, but realized that Abby, being an introvert (like her mom), is more comfortable with one or two close friends, while Alayna (more like her old man) feels better when surrounded in a large group of friends. If we were gonna be dropping the money on a huge-ass waterslide in our backyard, we wanted it getting used.
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| All-out chaos. |
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| Cannonball Run. |
So the morning of the party, around 10am, Yours Truly ran out to Meijer to pick up ice, the birthday cake, and last-minute party necessities - as well as to knock out a few errands - while Kris began receiving now-8th Grade girls. By the time I returned around 11:30am, there were about a dozen screaming girls in the backyard, running around. This continued, unabated, until we did cake and presents, around, like 1:30pm, then picked back up and went until 5pm-ish, when a huge thunderstorm descended on the area and forced everyone indoors for about an hour and half. Even then, despite the much cooler, post-rain temperatures, girls were getting back onto the bounce house.
It wasn't until 10pm that the last of the party-goers finally got picked up by their parents, and by then everyone was exhausted. But the Cannonball was happy, now a teenager and having spent a long-ass day with a shit-load of her friends.
If anyone needs me, I'm going to be in the other room. With some whiskey. . .
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| Alayna loves it when her mom takes pictures of her. |
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| Just like Nana used to make. . . |
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| Squad, assembled. L to R: Kendall, Alivia, Ellie, Amelia, Lexie, Cristina, Halle, the Cannonball, Gabby and the infamous Maddie. |
This is why I hid indoors for the majority of the day.
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| Playing volleyball (they hit the side of the house more than I'd like.) |
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| Mom stopped by to drop off a couple presents, and Alayna walked her around to show her the bounce house. . . |
I can't believe the Cannonball talked her into this.
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| After a couple hours or watersliding, sunbathing, and running about screaming, it was time for the Cannonball to open up her gifts. . . |
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| Some handmade anime paintings. This whole crew of Alayna's is really into this Japanese anime crap - something, as a middle school teenager, I've seen every year since 2007. I forget which of her friends painted these, but the girl clearly has some talent (these paintings are now hanging up in Alayna's bedroom.) |
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| Cards are hilarious. |
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| Homosexual night lights. Whatever. |
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| Sunbathing dogs. |
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| This kid and her tissue paper necklaces. . . |
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| Abby, in a rare non-rage mood. |
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| Alayna and Gabby |
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| More sunbathing dogs |
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| More anime shit. . . |
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| Kris recorded, like, an 8-minute video during this whole process. Hence me not posting it (thanks, Blogger.) Just know that there exists a video of Alayna opening up all this crap. |
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| Alayna got a couple sweatshirts from Mom to open today (I think she's dropping off her other gifts on her actual birthday), all of them anime-themed (of course.) This black and orange one is from some show about volleyball, and multiple girls at today's shin-dig all had different players' sweatshirt (as you can spot in the pics if you look closely.) |
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| #9. Not sure who that is. Someone with a Japanese name. |
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| See? Abby and one of the girls in the background (think her name is Amelia) are both sporting the volleyball team hoodies. |
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| #5. |
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| Wife close-up |
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| Kris went with the orange-and-black color scheme of this graduation cake due to the aforementioned volleyball anime thing (see: sweatshirts.) When she ordered it, she requested they take off the '2021,' since it wasn't a graduation cake. Meijer neglected to do so, and so this cake states the year in which Alayna celebrated a birthday. You know, for reference. |
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| Letting the sugar digest and enjoying more waterslide. The girls enjoyed straddling the side of the slide and kicking kids as they came down. Teenagers are weird. |
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| Frickin' Johnson kid. Ella was on hand to keep Abby entertained during the day's festivities. Fortunately there was minimal drama today. |
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| Storm's a-brewin'. We quickly brought everything that wasn't rain-proof indoors around 5pm, just as it began to downpour. For two hours (-ish), we were forced to hunker down inside while it thundered and poured outside: Kris worked on dinner and visited with her mom (who showed up, albeit late), Yours Truly whittled down and edited pictures, and the girls occupied themselves in the basement playing videogames and listening to their collaborative playlist (Alayna took a page from her old man and had each of her friends submit 10 songs for an ultimate birthday playlist - I've never been so proud.) When the rain let up, despite the chillier weather, most of the girls ran right back out to the waterslide again. At least we got our money's worth. . . |
- Brian
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