More August stuff

August 18th was Alex's 12th birthday and since his birthday falls in the summer it is hard to have a party with kids from school so usually I let him invite a friend for a fun day or give him a shopping spree of his choice. I guess this year I let him have both, who knows...I could have been over compensating for having lost his cousin and his grandma in the last year. Here we are setting out for our fun filled day.




After picking up his friend, Matty, our first stop was the paintball store when I spent a ridiculous amount of money to make a kid's birthday a happy one...yeah I got a lot of hugs for that shopping spree, trust me. Do you have any idea how much it cost for a paintball gun barrel? Insane!! Let's just say the American Express card was letting off steam after I walked out of there!




It was then off to Alex's choice of play, the local amusement park for an afternoon of games and rides. First on the ticket...rock climbing and I have to say that Alex was a champion climber and hit all 3 bells pretty quickly!



Last year when Alex turned 11 Jim and I had taken him to this same park for his birthday and I remember how mad he was that he wasn't tall enough to ride the Go-Karts alone to the point that he was obnoxious about it and we almost took him home...imagine that? HAHA! So this year I was praying...I knew the height requirement was 58" and at the last checkup he was 57" so I told him that when he got up to the ruler he needed to really stand up straight and stretch his neck out!! Well....HE MADE IT!! Man was he happy, he rode those things 3 times...but alas, Matty didn't make the cut...he wasn't so happy...but he did manage to ride the roller coaster a few times while Alex was on the Go-Karts.

Go Alex!!

We really enjoyed the afternoon, Alex and Matty played a round of mini-golf and then went on the bumper boats before we headed back home to wait for Jim to get home from work so that we could go out to a birthday dinner.




We all went to Applebee's for dinner and it was yummy! Of course I couldn't resist telling the waitress that we were celebrating a birthday while Alex was off playing one of the video games in the restaurant.

All of the wait staff is singing loudly to him!

That is not a sunburn on his cheeks!!

Happy Birthday Alex! :-)