Happy Birthday Sam!

Today was Sam's 9th birthday! He has been anticipating this day for months, and he woke us up bright and freaking early to maximize his birthday experience. He got some great presents, including spending money from Grandma Dorinda:

A Star Wars Transformer from Grammy and Grandpa Joe:

Transformers large and small from Aunt Michelle and Uncle Rich:

Thanks for the guitar Michelle. Thanks a lot. Note that the volume does not just go up to 10, but 11.

At this point our camera failed, but Sam also was delighted with the surfing Bionicle from Grandma Martha and Grandpa Saul!

Also, Sam very generously made Joseph a gift certificate entitling him to play with one of Sam's new toys:

This certificate entitles the bearer to playing with one of the birthday boys presents immediately after unwrapping.
Time allotment: 30 min.
(may be divided between two presents)
Rules:
1. may not be done against the birthday boys will.
2. may only be used on July 27, 2008

After the debacle at Joseph's party at the Children's Discovery Museum, I was happy that Sam chose the ProPutt Activity Center for his party. The kids went nuts in the trampoline/climbing structure/ball pit.

Sam wanted an Iron Man theme, so we decorated the cake with various Iron Man figures engaged in a pitched battle with good triumphing over evil in a blaze of frosting energy beams.

Sam's friends Katana, Thomas and Evan from TaeKwonDo and Steven and Gabby from the neighborhood were there. (Jacob from school and Megan from the neighborhood were out of town).


The kids had a good time playing games. ProPutt is great because although some of the games require tokens, there is a giant gallery of "vintage" video games that are all free play, as well as free glow-in-the-dark air hockey, foosball, mini-golf and regular (not glow-in-the-dark) mini-golf.

Joseph spent quite a while racing/crashing motorcycles.

Sam played a round of mini-golf with Katana and her dad Jeff, who is Sam's TaeKwonDo teacher.

Joseph and I played pretty well up to the 8th hole, when he got bored. Joseph decided that if the ball went under the gorilla, he should too.


Overall, a great time was had by all. I was concerned that Sam's extremely high expectations of his birthday would be impossible to match, but he was very happy indeed.