Birthday Celebration

 We never had our celebration for Austin's birthday with his friends in June. Before school got out, life was pretty busy. I told him we'd just plan on having a party sometime this summer. 

Well, the day finally arrived to celebrate his 13th birthday. It is tricky having a party in the summer when a lot of people are out-of-town. It was also tricky with the venue we chose- Turtle Cove. It had recently reopened and has a cap on how many people can be in this little water park. My original plan was to do the Twilight Swim, but I worried if people were already in the park and stayed, we wouldn't be able to get in if they were close to the maximum number of people allowed in. So I opted for when they open at noon. 

Luckily, Austin's best buds were the ones who could make it to the party and luckily the smaller number allowed us to ride in only one car for the 25-minute drive. His friends came to our house at 11 am and I fed them brunch which included French toast, sausage, bacon, orange juice, and strawberries. Feeding four 13-year-old teenage boys isn't too bad, yet! 

Brunch!

We got there at 12:15 and had to wait almost an hour to get in, something I wasn't expecting, but it went quickly and the boys had fun while waiting. I later discovered that the first person in line arrived at 11 and waited an hour to get in. So I should always expect to wait around an hour to get into Turtle Cove. 

Unlike what some of their faces show, including Austin, they're very excited to get in. Austin often likes to make weird faces in pics- luckily, this one wasn't bad!

There's a lazy river in the back around that yellow water umbrella.

Ready to go down the big slide!

The boys had a great time and it went by so quickly! I had brought in water and granola bars, which they ended up consuming on the way home rather than taking a break at the park.

The original plan was to bbq hamburgers when we returned, but I didn't account for the long wait at the beginning, so Jason ordered pizza that arrived a little bit after when returned. Again, those 13-year-olds didn't let me down and ate a fair amount of pizza!

Kai made the cake, as usual, and his friends all gave him gift cards, which seems to be the thing to do for tween and teen boys. 

I made him smile normally!

A real smile here with gift cards!

My boys were exhausted the rest of the evening! It was a fun celebration!