"Almost" a Birthday Party

Our little Allyson will be 10 years old...tomorrow! We knew we couldn't have a party on the actual date since that is the first day of China camp....so we offered her either the weekend before or after for her party. Allyson chose the weekend before and said she wanted to "swim and invite only ONE person". Hmmmm. Being such creative parents (NOT!), we just rented a hotel room so she could have both the swimming and a sleepover.

The pool was unusually cold for an indoor pool, and the echo in the room (from other rowdy hotel guests) was almost unbearable....but the kids still swam for awhile. We then returned to the room where the kids played Twister while dh went to pick up pizzas for dinner. After pizza, we munched on a yummy chocolate chip cookie "cake" and opened gifts. Allyson was thrilled with her gifts of jewelry, 2 build-a-bear gift cards, a Justice gift card, Nintendo DS game and a Carrie Underwood CD.

I packed a couple of extra activities for the kids, just to make sure they weren't bored (& I was so glad I thought ahead). We originally thought they would just want to swim more before the party ended, but they decided the pool was just too cold. Instead, they decorated tote bags and did makeovers (with closed eyes...so you can imagine what those makeup jobs looked like!).