It was my turn for birthday party duty.  The event was at Pump it Up Jr. which is an indoor playground full of inflatable slides, bounces, and obstacle courses. The kids had lots of fun but the enclosed space made the noise deafening – my ears were definitely hurting afterwords. Even so, it was quieter than my Chucky Cheese experience.

After playing, we ate homemade and very tasty cupcakes. Then there was a wild frenzy of present opening as each kid competed to have their present opened first by birthday girl Ella.

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It was our friend’s son, Eli’s, birthday. We enjoyed it out on the farm on a beautiful autumn day. There was a talk about all of the different pumpkins,  then we went through a small hay bale maze which ended at a small slide.  Then we went into a larger hay bale maze which ended in a bigger slide,  then there was just a slide. A big slide! Jasmine must have gone on it 10 times. She even had mommy go down it. There were farm animals and water games and a tractor train ride which brought us to a playground surrounded by sunflowers and pumpkins. We then went to pick out our pumpkins and found yet another maze. A really good ‘children of the corn’ corn maze!

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We had a wonderful visit with Destiny’s new parents Brian and Patty. We met at a pizza parlor with an indoor play structure. So the kids did lots of playing while the adults did lots of talking.  Patty is a grade school teacher, so we selfishly asked her lots of questions, and she very graciously gave us some great tips.

We also got to meet two of Brian and Patty’s daughters who are cheerleaders which immediately got a thumbs up from Jasmine. Destiny is getting to know all about football going to all the games with the family to assist in cheering.

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We took Jasmine to her first Renaissance Fair.  The prior week we told her to expect a surprise event with the hint that she had to dress up as a princess. She was excited and wore her princess crown a couple times during the week to get ready.

Jasmine was quite impressed with the fair. She enjoyed all the people in costumes and especially liked the joust. And I must admit, the joust was one of the best ones I’ve seen as well. The melee combat was as good as any movie I’ve seen. Our champion to root for was the nefarious Black Knight. Even though he gave despicable taunts to his opponents, he was quite gracious to the kids on our side of the arena giving out high fives to the boys and touches to the girls for luck. I lifted up Jasmine to get her kudos from the Knight and Jasmine seemed thrilled. I think the luck paid off, since our Black Knight won.

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I took Jasmine to this year’s Beaverton Parade. The theme was Dancing in the Streets, although Dancing in the Rain would also have worked given the misty rainy morning. But since we are in Portland, the weather didn’t hold anyone back (except for Emily who is getting over a cold ).

They had some new stuff this year, including appearances by Chucky Cheese and Ronald McDonald, which Jasmine claims both waved to her. Which is probably true, since Jasmine waved to everybody. Jasmine also liked the tap dancers, cheerleaders and dance troops.  That is, when her attention was not distracted by collecting a hoard of candy thrown into the streets. Good thing my raincoat had deep pockets.

Last years parade…

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