a peek inside the fishbowl

Last week was Birthday Week here at Casa Fishbowl! Sadly it also coincided with The Week of the Plague, so I was feeling pretty miserable the whole time. Oh well.

I like to use this space to describe each birthday as it happens. It’s more for my own scrapbooky kinda benefit, but if you want to see how it all went down, read on!

First, I want to backtrack a bit and show what our invites looked like. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

I bought punch balloons, inflated them, and wrote the party details on the balloon. Then we let the air out and made wee envelopes for them:

This worked out perfectly, except for the guest whose balloon was “accidentally” popped by their little sister. We had to follow up with birthday co-ordinates by email. :)

Sarah’s actual birthday was on Wednesday, so the celebrations started then. As always, they included a birthday dinner. Sarah requested the usual.

… and special dessert:

Our gift to Sarah was The Scooter that Surpasses all Scooters. I sent an email to Fishbowl patron Tagalong Toys about scooter options, and after a few back and forths, here’s the one we chose to buy. (Thank you Tagalong!) This is Serious Scooterage. No foolin’.  It’s a dream machine. Goodbye wobbly wheels that can barely tolerate sticks and stones and regular city sidewalks! This baby glides. In fact, it was impossible to nail Sarah down long enough to snap a proper photo:

Mark is jealous and is secretly coveting a black one.

We also bought her some pretty earrings made by a local artist, and this pillow from a cute shop in Almonte called Blackbird (which I will write more about later):

Saturday was the day of the real birthday deal. We’d already wrapped her thank-you gifts. (These were in lieu of loot bags.) Sarah chose a special little stone for each guest:

Saturday morning, as per tradition, Sarah received breakfast in bed:

And I put the finishing touches on the birthday cake. It was all about meerkats this year:

And then it was time to head out to our party destination: FUNHAVEN. (Note: we were the lucky beneficiaries of a discounted party, but as always the opinions here remain my own.)

Given how worn out I was feeling as a result of my health issues I was really pleased that we weren’t hosting the party at home this year.

Funhaven truly is an excellent place to have a birthday, and Sarah was the perfect age for it. There is an excellent assortment of things for kids to do, lots of comfy places for parents to sit, and the place was clean and brimming with happy people, whether it was staff, visitors, or other party participants.

We had two party hosts assigned to our group for the whole two hours and they stuck to the kids like glue. I swear they did a better job wrangling the kids than I would have. The two young ladies (Madii and Hannah) were totally on the ball, energetic, funny, and friendly… the perfect pair for a bunch of 11-year old girls. And seeing how lousy I was feeling (I had in fact totally lost my voice at this point) I really appreciated their help. (They even brought me tea! Wasn’t that nice?)

First up on the agenda was the ball pit and climbing zone. I wasn’t 100% convinced the girls would enjoy this part very much. I wrongly assumed this area was skewed younger – but you know what, they had a blast, even our almost 13-year old had fun. But then again, who doesn’t enjoy pelting other people with squishy balls and then loading them into a giant cannon?

The rest our time unfolded as a perfectly orchestrated birthday should. I felt nary a moment of frustration. I was able to watch and enjoy, and eat multiple cough drops.

These people know what they’re doing. We had time in a quiet room to eat pizza (which was very good, made on the premises) and eat meerkat cake (which I deliberately made smaller this time, knowing how much food there was going to be as well as a limited amount of time to eat it).

Our meerkats were surrounded by tiki torches (11 of them):

After we ate our fill the hosts lead us around, making sure we had a turn at the bumper cars:

… the climbing wall, and the laser tag (which the kids LOVE LOVE LOVED). There was also time for the arcade, which everyone enjoyed very much:

Me, I like the old skool games, like this one.

There are a lot of high-tech things here too (some of which I wrote about in this past post).

Everyone was sad to leave and the end of the party was a little like herding cats, but it was well worth it. (You can read more about Funhaven and their party packages on their website.)

Here’s the best thing about Funhaven (which we didn’t know before). As long as ours guests kept their bracelets on, they were allowed to come back after the party (only on the day of the party) and play all the games and attractions that were included as part of the party package. So that’s what we did! After a long goodbye (see above about herding cats) we went home to rest and eat dinner. Then Mark brought Emma and Sarah BACK for Birthday Fun Phase Two. They did everything all over again: laser tag, climbing wall, bumper cars, and played their favourite arcade games. Can you believe it? Imagine how worn out they were when they came home. (YAY.)

Sarah didn’t actually have time to open her gifts during her party (we didn’t want to take away from their time having fun!) so she opened them when she got home. I took a photo of her with each gift, which she then emailed as a thank you to all of her friends:

That’s it! That was party number 11. It was a lot of fun, but I’m glad to go back to normal life for awhile. Or at least until Emma’s birthday in May. :)

Piper is a Wire Fox Terrier. She doesn’t shed, which is great, but the trade-off is that we need to bring her to the groomers for a clipping a few times a year.

Back in November we decided to let Piper grow a winter coat. Not only would it keep her nice and cozy during the cold months, but it would be cheaper too. Fast forward to yesterday; her winter coat had grown into an uncontrollable fuzzy mass, a thick nose-to-tail shag carpet that was making her look like a doggie version of Chewbacca. Or Bigfoot. I’m not sure which, but the situation was getting a little out of control.

Just look at this mop top.

And here she is after her visit to the groomers! She was noticeably happier to get rid of the deadweight. She practically flew home, smiling all the way. (I love how dogs smile.)

In case you’re wondering, we bring her to Masters n’ Dogs (formerly known as Bark & Fitz) in Westboro. Ask for Lena! She does a great job. It’s like having a whole new Piper!

This is how it happened.

I fell ill with a weird cold during Easter weekend and haven’t gotten over it yet. Sarah got sick a couple of days ago. Emma got sick yesterday, as did Mark. We are a capital mess.

This is a first for us – getting sick at the same time that is. I’m actually thankful the girls are older and are relatively happy to camp out in front of the TV. I can’t imagine having to deal with this plague if they were babies.

I am anxious. Not just about our health, but about my to-do list. It’s about a mile long. We just signed a lease on an apartment and are gearing up for a giant move which will take place sometime between May 15 and June 1 (I will explain later). There are unanswered emails in my Inbox and white drifts of Kleenex in the living room. I have a backlog of really great stuff I want to write about here.

I feel guilty and twitchy and I also need to take the time to heal… but I can’t. There just isn’t time. I am running on fumes again today, drawing heavily on what’s left of my reserves. Thank goodness Mark is here. At least I’m not alone.