Let It Rip! Freestone's Birthday Festivities

Freestone's birthday started with a stop at McDonald's early in the morning on the way to violin.  Since it was his birthday, he got to give his violin teacher a gift. That was fun, but oddly enough, it wasn't necessarily the thing he was looking forward to the most about his big day. There was more to come...

June 19th included a special delivery from Aunt Jennie: her famous giant birthday donut!  Thanks, Jen! 

Scott took Ptolemy and Freestone to lunch and to play at the new Farmington Station playground and fountain while the girls were at recital staging.  After lunch, it was the moment Freestone has been waiting for all year:  Boondocks!  Scott took Freestone and Henry and let them run wild while Tziporah kept him company.  Scott has all kinds of pictures on his phone, but I don't have access right now, so you'll just have to imagine two awesome boys playing mini golf, laser tag, bowling, or whatever they have at Boondocks.  Scott's only complaint was that Freestone wanted to play some game where you have a chance to win an ipad.  Try as we might to explain to him that you would have to spend a fortune to win an ipad, he was still determined that he would have the best luck in the history of the universe and earn 10,000 tickets on his first try.  Five bucks into it, Scott put his foot down.  Good thing there were other activities to try!  That night, Coco and Bill brought quite the collection of Beyblade paraphernalia in preparation for the big party the next day...

For the next day, Freestone had planned a Beyblade tournament/waterslide birthday party.  It sounded to me like a little much for one party, but it ended up being a lot of fun for the boys.  However, one kid announced that it was "the second-worst birthday party" he had ever been to because he hated Beyblades and forgot his swimsuit.  Just wow.  Normally a very polite kid, just honest.  I found him a swimsuit and after that, he wanted to stay all day.  I never heard what the final ranking was for this party, but he didn't want to leave at the end.

 Beyblades are spinning tops that "battle" each other until one stops.

 I thought the cookies looked like Beyblades, kinda, but apparently my kids have no imagination.  They didn't get it.

For the better part of the two-hour party, Ruby and I laid on the couch eating frosting or making videos of Tziporah.  The 16 boys were easy.  The party, however, had its snafus.  I'm mad I didn't get footage of the moment Henry came to me with his leg dripping blood.  I was filming Tizzy at the time, oblivious to the cries for help coming out of the gully.  I guess Henry slid down the cliff when he was hunting for a snake, got pretty banged up, and couldn't climb out.  Oh, I didn't tell you that the Beyblade-Tournament-Slip-n-Slide-Birthday party included a snake hunt?  Don't worry, the kids were armed with pocket knives and glass jars.  The snake kept getting away, though.

Anyway, the camera ran out of memory right before Henry limped in, hyperventilating and gushing blood.  After we cleaned the wounds (both legs and a gash across the chest) he felt better about the situation.  Invitations to our house should include a caveat like, "You are cautiously invited to a party.  We do have a rough idea of what we'll be doing, but circumstances are subject to change and may include sharp objects, being locked outside, snakes (probably not rattlers), steep ravines, access to messy and potentially toxic materials, expeditions outside the boundaries of the party and, if you're very lucky, wild things being brought home in jars.  There will be an adult there, but you'd have to be bleeding pretty badly to get her attention.  RSVP at your own risk."

Now doesn't that sound like a party?  You know it was a rager because it ended with me shouting, "Dallin, put down that stake and GO HOME!!"  What.  You don't have three-foot long wooden stakes at your birthday parties?  What if a vampire showed up?