2024 Summer Trip - Celebrating Ian and Alli's Half Birthday - 2024/07/21

It's time to celebrate Ian and Alli's half birthday! Theresa and I like to do this every year whenever we're nearby a lot of family and friends. We're celebrating a little bit late this year (for it to be exactly a half birthday, but whatever). And since we're near a Chuck E Cheese, why not head there to celebrate! 

Loving that Aunts and Uncles are able to join us! 

Plus cousins!

Grammy and Grandpa too. 

And even more friends! 

Everyone watching Ian show off his skills on Pop the Lock. 

Theresa and I supplied everyone with plenty of game cards. We've got so many points built up from coming here so many times. 

And when you get a bunch of guys together, of course we're going to compete to see who can put up the highest score! 

Gotta brag on Theresa a little bit and the deals she figures out. With our Summer Fun Pass, we get 50% off all food orders, but it doesn't stop there. She also buys Chuck E Cheese gift cards from Costco where they're $50 gift cards for only $35. That makes everything right around 35% of the original price, so a $20 pizza would only cost $7! We had plenty of pizza, cheese bread, and wings for everyone! 

T and I went to the store earlier to get all the decorations for the tables. 

Gold for Ian. 

And pinks and purples for Alli. 

For dessert, Dippin Dots for everyone who wanted one, plus giant warm cookies for the birthday kids.

They got candles but no fire. I'm not sure Chuck E would like that very much. 

Normally their half-birthday is just a time for T and I to give them gifts. They get plenty of gifts from everyone else on their real birthday. Becky and Todd though were very thoughtful and brought them each half a birthday card! Very clever.

Time for more games! 

Alli and I maxing out the scores on the Snowball Toss game. 

And getting 99999 on the beanbag toss too! These games keep bumping the score up each time you win, making it harder and harder to win the bonus. 

But Pop the Lock is consistent, and so is Ian. 

Once we got back home, it was time to open the presents we bought them. Water balloons are lots of fun! 

But they were extra excited for the giant bag of balloons. 

Here's their big gifts. Alli has wanted an Apple watch so she can track her steps, tell the time, and get messages and texts. She's worn it nearly every day since getting it. 

And Ian has been asking for the longest time for a drone with a camera to fly. After looking for a while, I found a great introductory drone that only weighs 249 grams, meaning no special license is required to fly it. It's considered a "toy" versus an aircraft. 

So let's go outside and fly it before it gets too dark! 

For being so little, it has lots of fun features! Like video recording, auto take-off and landing, GPS tracking (so if it loses contact to the remote or if you push a button, it returns automatically without any input and lands), and live video on your phone while you're flying! Really cool! 

Hi there! 

Back home, they spent hours watching YouTube videos about how to make different balloon shapes. 

They have aspirations of selling their balloon creations to people once they learn how to make more things.