Birthday Bash

We had a hard time picking a venue for Owen's birthday -- the Dinosaur Park doesn't do birthdays, the minor league teams were too far away, Nationals Park was ridiculously expensive, climbing walls are intended for the six and older crowd, and the only slot we could get at the Smithsonian Zoo was for 10:30 am on a Sunday. But then Brad & Marlo mentioned the College Park Aviation Museum and they had an opening for a Saturday afternoon party on Owen's actual birthday, so we booked it sight unseen and hoped for the best.

It didn't get off to a promising start. Nora woke up with a 103.5 fever which meant she couldn't attend the festivities and Mom Mom volunteered to watch her while Owen, Allen, Grandpa Don and I headed to the wrong venue before eventually making it to the museum. There we met up with 9 of Owen's friends from daycare, school, and our about town.

Despite the less than promising start to the day, the party at the Aviation Museum was a lot of fun. First the kids played in the party room, then they toured the museum, then they played in the "hands on" area and flight simulators, then they checked out the "pedal planes," put together Lego helicopters, sang "happy birthday" and had cake.

At which point the sugar kicked in.

With 15 minutes left to go, it was bedlam -- kids were running around everywhere. While the party technically ended at 4:00 pm, Owen, Leo, Brady, and Tadashi decided to close down the museum with an after-party that primarily involved throwing their good-bag "sticky-hands" over any surface they could find and running up and down the outside stairs. Everyone certainly had a good time, and the staff at the Museum were very nice and understanding about our gaggle of energetic five year olds.

By 5:00 pm we were finally able to convince Owen to head back to Mom Mom's to see Nora and go out for the french fries he specially requested for dinner. But when we went out for his birthday dinner, Owen barely touched his hamburger, fries, and the ice cream that Fire Station One brought over for him. That probably should have been the tip off. With neither child feeling great, we headed home and quickly put them both to bed and called it a night...until I went to check on Owen around 11 pm and found our poor little guy had thrown up (and fallen back asleep without a word). Apparently turning 5 is harder than you think (and donuts for breakfast and two pieces of cake in the afternoon are more than a five year old stomach can take). Thankfully by the morning Owen was on the mend. Afterall, he wouldn't want to be sick for his first week of Kindergarten...