Valentines party

Last week we got to borrow my in-laws minivan and go to a Homeschool Valentine's Day Skating party at a local fun-zone type of place. This was organized by one of the Homeschooling web groups we belong to, and there were 71 children who participated!

This place had inflatible bouncy-type things, an indoor slide, arcade games, laser tag and roller skating. Since my kids dont really roller skate, it was only 12 dollars for the whole family, total! nice!

Each family made Valentines for 71 kids, and just signed their own names without filling in the "to:" portion. Each child was to make a large gift bag or shoebox, decorated with Valentine's flair, to be their official InBox.

Around halfway through the skate-day, us adults all joined forces and lined up everysingle bag and box (some of them were SO cute! tons of other artisitc homeschooled kids, for sure!!) all snaking through the main hallway of the place. When they were all lined up, then each child took their 71 Valentines they filled out, and dropped one in each bag or box!

71 is alot of kids and alot of Valentines, and boy did some of these people really go out of their way to make cute special things! We got a butterfly made out of smarties candies, little homemade ones with lace and glitter, lollipops tied together with curling ribbon, tiny ziplock bags with stickers and tattoos---it was so nice!

Because it wasnt certain whether or not we had use of a vehicle until the night before the event, all we did was buy some Spongebob Valentines from Kroger and write GretaMickeyCaseyCharlie on each one late into the night. Not my style, but again, time constraints! Good thing others were more creative or else how boring and lame would a bag full of those be?

Charlie can now handle a lollipop supervised without doing anything besides consuming it appropriately. So cool! He loves them and they last him forever and we got a lot of them. Precious baby head.

We didnt necessarily make new best friends, it was far too loud to even talk, which I found to be rediculous, especially with so many babies there. But it seems like yesterday that my own mom thought Great Skate was too loud and I thought she was showing her age---haha!

The biggest hit of the day, BY FAR, was the Crane Game success that Greta, Mickey and Casey had in catching stretchy flashing gummi Koosh balls. they won SEVEN of them and were sooooo ecstaticlly proud (my feigned shock at their prowess helped I think) that they werent even upset to go home because they were planning all the fun things they were going to do with them.

This event definatly makes me want to go do more things with this particular group of families, the few people I did get to talk to were super cool, and Greta and I were really impressed by the "look" of the teenage girls. (no, not long hair and mormon dresses) They were absolutley hip stylish and cool, as far as crazy chunky haircuts, black eyeliner, saggy jeans----but none of them looked slutty or half naked whatsoever. They wore things like Japanese Anime t shirts, various "dragon" type of stuff, maybe a skull or wizard....but no pink sparkle, and I know Greta is thirsting to see girls that look like the way she plans on when she is older. She talked about it extensively on the drive home, and I tried to be pleasant and a bit neutral (lest I scare her out of this plan which I am ECSTATIC about!) Greta is a fanatical observer of people, and I love her more each second. There were also ALOT of boys and girls talking and hanging out in what, to the casual observer, was geniune conversation, and when a toddler ran up, both the teenage boys and the teenage girls would kiss them, answer their question, or pop them up on their laps without even breaking eye contact or the conversation. I LOVE SEEING THIS, nice kids who love little kids, because they were not brainwashed to hate people younger than themselves. NORMAL FAMILY INTERACTION NOT BEING EMBARASSING---also extremely rare in the non homeschooled populus.

NOBODY looked like they were going to commit suicide if Mom or Dad talked to them, and really, there was just a lack of angst and extreme scowling that seemed to color me and my peer's teen years. EXTREMELY cool.

Mickey loved the arcade games best, and Casey loved the bouncey things. Casey loved the super loud music, he was dancing ( really well!) the second we opened the main doors, and never stopped until we left.

Charlie was pretty happy once lollipops were obtained, but I know it was too loud for him.

Fun!