18 Jun, 2007
I’m having trouble getting started today
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Easy ways to make kids happy|Ottawa|Photography
… so photos will have to do.
18 Jun, 2007
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Easy ways to make kids happy|Ottawa|Photography
… so photos will have to do.
1 | Roz
Wow, that looks like so much fun!
Do you always organize a street party for the kids, and how do you get the firefighters there?
2 | andrea
For starters, it wasn’t our street party. For the past three years we’ve been invited to crash the street party of our good friends who live along Wellington West.
As far as I understand it, the firefighters are booked in advance. That’s all there is to it!
3 | Joe
I live on the street.
This was the fifth year that we had the street closed off and threw a party. The street party is held on West Wellington Village’s Hampton Avenue, right off of Wellington.
My next door neighbor (a friend of Andrea’s) organizes and plans the event with me, and the rest of the street gives a hand and helps out, such as have the firefighters at the street party, pick up and return barricades, book the bouncy castle, plan “the battle of jello”, have games and activities for the kids.
Everyone just has a good time, and this year’s street party was a huge success. We had a large turnout, estimating 80 partygoers, made up of residents from the neighborhood and our own street, friends and family.
Every year I try to have some kind of contest for the kids: one year we picked the king, queen, and court jester of Hampton Avenue, another year we held an air guitar contest, and last year had a disco dance contest in which parents were invited to join their kids and boogie on the dance floor. Right, Andrea–dancing queen?
A big hit of the street party are the firefighters and their truck, and this year they made themselves a bigger hit with everyone when they took out the hose and sprayed the kids and (look for Andrea in the picture) also a grownup or two.
What every kid and grownup can’t wait for and really looks forward to–the highlight of our street party–is near the end when all the kids line up and toss jello at each other in the “battle of jello”.
A street party is just a great way to have fun and meet other people from the neighborhood and build a real spirit of community.
Though Emma and Sara don’t live on the street, they are “on the list”, which also gets their lucky parents into the social event of the year.
My name is Andrea and I live in the Westboro area of Ottawa with my husband Mark and our dog Piper who is kind of a big deal on Instagram. We also have two human offspring: Emma (24) and Sarah (22). During the day I work as a writer at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. I am a longtime Ottawa blogger and I've occupied this little corner of the WWW since 1999. The Fishbowl is my whiteboard, water cooler, and journal, all rolled into one. I'm passionate about healthy living, arts and culture, travel, great gear, good food, and sharing the best of Ottawa. I also love vegetables, photography, gadgets, and great design.
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