Birthday Day

My boy turns six in one week, but yesterday was his "birthday day", which means it was the day we teamed up with another boy freshly six and had a big blowout bonanza.

About forty, fifty or so kids at a local screamfest called "Thunder Valley". Same thing we did last year. I think the first words out of my mouth that time, after getting in the car, were "Never again." Sure enough, again, one year later. We won't go into all the discussions I lost that led us here.

Go karts, video games, laser tag, cake and juice. They have mini-golf, but you have to commit to a 2 1/2 hour party for that to be included. No thank you. As it turned out, thundershowers were in the area, so putt-putt wouldn't have been wise anyway. So we were all wrapped up and finished in an hour-and-a-half.

Unfortunately (or not) we had a big ole' system crash at work just as I was walking out the door to go to this saturnalia, so I only caught the last 30 minutes. Thankfully, that was almost cake time, so I missed the token begging and horrified parent part of the evening.

And as any South Roanoke Circle reader will tell you, I ranted severely about the concept of "goodie bags". Yes, there was some beggin' for bags going on, but instead we gave out cheapo water shooters. These quickly doubled as Light Sabers for most of the testosterunts in the crowd, so the proprietors of Thunder Valley were quite ready for us to go.

In the end, a fine time was had, hopefully, by all.