Get Air and Party! Alan’s 9th Birthday

Can anyone tell me how can 9 years fly by so fast?!

How can we remember every single moment of our kids’ birth 5-20-50 years after and hardly remember what we did on a weekend 2 weeks ago (unless it was a Big Day)? Of course, I know it is because their birth dates are so special! But I am still amazed by how our brains work 🙂  Last Saturday we have celebrated Alan’s 9th Birthday, and we had a blast! Technically, his birthday was on Sunday, but we did not want to interfere with people’s Sundays’ routines (church, family gatherings, and so on). Alan asked if he could have a birthday party at the new trampoline park opened in the city a few months ago. We have been there for a couple of times before then, and we know kids love it there! So, he was very excited to hear the answer:

Yes! We are having a Get Air Birthday Party!

This post is in no way sponsored by the Get Air park. The opinions are my own (heavily affected by Alan’s feedback :)). Prices may vary from place to place. Also, if you are on a tight budget you may find having a party there is less affordable than if you organize a party at your home.

Growing as a summer-born kid might not be easy 🙂 Kids are off school, and many of their friends are away. So, we distributed the party invitations on the last week of school (you can download a printable party checklist at the end of the post to help you out with some planning). Unfortunately, two kids (parents) had responded confirming they would not be able to attend the party as they were away that weekend. But Alan was happy to know that most of the kids were coming!

So, a little bit about our pros and cons of having a party at the facility.

Pros

1. Alan’s wish to have the party there. I am sure every parent will go above and beyond to make their kido happy!
2. You book the place and kids can entertain themselves there. You just need to make sure everything is under control in terms of safety (kids do go wild there).
3. Included with the package are: 2 large pizzas, 2 large bottles of soft drinks, socks (they require special socks with the rubber sole), cups, plates and utensils, and table coverings. You can bring your cake, fruit/veggies, and water. You will be required to pay an additional fee if you want to bring other food items.
4. Employees help to supervise the kids there, explain the rules, and make your time there awesome!
5. They offer goodie-bags for an additional fee, and you can choose the items going into the bags.
6. You get a table set-up, and you don’t need to worry about the after party clean-up! (Can you beat this one??? :))

Cons

1. The main downside for us is the damage to our wallets. As I have mentioned, it is not cheap. But! if you take into account all the things included in the package, we thought it was a good deal for us.
2. Though both employees and parents try to keep kids safe, accidents still happen. We had a kid crying as other kids were throwing balls too hard at him. One of the employees approached the kids and explained the rules of the game again, and it helped. Just make sure you watch the kids all the time so they are not going too wild  🙂

So, if you choose to have a party anywhere other than your house, it is always recommended to give the heads-up to the guests regarding the check-in process, and some basic rules. In our case, parents had to sign a waiver which was a two-minute “work” at one of the computers. If you have been to the place before, you don’t need to do it again as you are already in the system.

Party Time!

After kids arrived, they were allowed to play/use any area of the park. Watching those kids jumping, flying, running the monkey bars, and all, was so fascinating! At some point, we actually forgot about taking pictures as we were just watching them and trying to keep up running after them. Also, we had realized it would be difficult to take good quality pictures as there were moving all the time 🙂

Just watch Alan flying in the air! 🙂

I sometimes wish we had something like that when we were kids! Oh my goodness! What crazy things we did back then! and how many cuts, falls, lost teeth we “earned”! 🙂

Anyway, the park is all yours for 2 hours. Well, there are other groups there but there is still enough to do for everyone. After one hour, our hostess announced that the pizza had arrived, and I learned how magic the word “pizza” was! Kids ran to the table and I did not need to call them twice!

I need a HUGE smiley face here! 🙂

One of the kids invited to the party is dairy-intolerant, and I am vegan, so I asked the Get Air staff if I could bring a vegan pizza there. And they told me since it is food allergies, then by all means, yes. We ordered vegan pizza from Panago Pizza, as they have !two! vegan pizza options on their menu! Woo-hoo!

We had some cherry tomatoes and green peas (straight from the garden ;)) to go with pizza and kids loved them! (Can you see me happy-dancing watching kids eating veggies?)

They finished the pizza in no time and wanted to run back to the trampoline area. (Those kids seemed to have an endless energy reserve! Hehe…),

but it was time for the cake!

After the party, we noticed that we did not have any pictures of the cake. How did that happen??? Well, it shows once again, no matter how hard you are trying to have everything under control, something must go not as planned.

But we have a picture of the fruit platter 😉

The watermelon cut into hearts and little guys shapes (remember the cookie cutters?) were a hit! Kids were grabbing them and commenting how cute they were! In the meantime, the parents were coming back to pick up their kids, and there were a few of them asking me where I bought these? They seemed to be pretty surprised we cut them ourselves, and thought it was a great idea! (another happy dance here for making parents happy too :))

We let the kids play for a few more minutes and then it was

The presents time!

Look at Alan’s face! 🙂 He was so happy to get all the gifts!

However, remember the first magic word? I have another one for you! and it is

The goodie bags!

We decided to upgrade the Get Air gift bags to include the kids’ favourites now – fidget spinners! They turned out to be of a good quality, and kids were, you got it right, blown away! Get Air added a few smaller items in the bags and did not charge us for those! That was very nice of them.

Two hours flew by. It was funny, as our two-hour time was over, but nobody seemed to be wanting to leave. Kids kept playing and parents chatting. I get it as a sign everybody was happy to get together and enjoyed the party!

I have to note how friendly and helpful the Get Air staff were! They answered all of our questions in a timely manner and helped with everything we needed. Also, they seem to be able to keep the balance of being invisible, so kids can enjoy and not feel like being watched all the time, and being there for you if you need anything.

And,

At the end of the day, Alan told us it was the best birthday party ever (do you melt when you hear kids tell you that :)). 

What are your favourite places for kids’ parties? What was the worst? I guess it is good to know those too… and if it did happen, how did you make (or tried to make) it work? Please share your comments below.