Pictures from my Son's 9th Birthday Party

We celebrated my son's 9^th birthday yesterday at Texas Jumping Beans (see my earlier post from today), and it was a blast!  Everyone we invited showed up, so we ended up with a pretty large turnout (about 18 kids).  Abby chipped in to "help" during preparations at home beforehand, by making what I called "cereal angels" on the living room floor:

We had a terrific time, and (as usual) I got a good workout from jumping around on the inflatables, running, and playing dodgeball.  Brandon got some great exercise as well.  I was struck today by how similar this sweaty photo of him is to one of me when I was about eleven playing soccer at school.  One of our friends also mentioned how much he looked like me at one point when he made a specific expression.

Gift time is always fun time, and he got some great stuff this time around, including several books that he wanted, a couple of video games for the Nintendo Wii, and a large 3D puzzle of a pterodactyl. 

Here are a couple of shots of the facility itself that I took yesterday:

Aleah decided that her stuffed turtle, that she named Turtum, would also have a good time at the party, so he came along for the ride. 

My wife got a chance to catch up with her friends a little bit while Abby enjoyed some juice:

Here's a shot of me with Abby as the party was winding down (we are both pretty sweaty here).

Frankly, we were all pretty exhausted afterwards, which is part of the goal. 

Happy birthday, son!