Originally we were going to hold it in the Kalorama Pavilion. This was a cheaper option and allowed the guest list to be open-ended. But on the down side was the catering (which was not too scary) and the cleaning up (which was scary to me at least). Also the wintertime weather in Kalorama could rely on being cold and muddy with the option of complimentary rain.
So we settled on a play center after much discussion of options like the Kynda Gym and a few others as it was (1) easy, (2) catered relatively well to a diverse set of ages and was not too expensive.
Kirsten looked at the options and picked out Koko Jumbo’s. A play center located in an industrial estate in Lilydale. It had the unexpected addition of nearly unlimited parking.
When it came to inviting guests, Kirsten had control over this. I have discovered a new mathematical sequence, lets call it the birthday sequence. It goes like this. 12, 15, 17, 20. We started inviting 12, then it seems we invited lots of people from Sherbrooke Community School as well as the Swinburne Community Day Care Center as Teresa seems to end up being at both a lot. So what started as 12, crept up slowly. In the end we ended up with 20. Luckily not every one invited came. The actual last number in the sequence is 24. Maybe the law’s of birthdays is that you will invite 200% of the originally intended guest list. I have to say that Koko Jumbo handled it very well. They moved us into a larger room, the Jungle Room where as we had started in the Fairy Room, when it became clear that the numbers were in excess of what we had booked and what the Fairy Room could accomodate.
I took quite a few photos, the others you can see over at Flickr. I was a disappointed that the people running the place seemed to have some thing against me taking photos of our own party. But still they did not do so again.
In the end it was all very successful. Teresa had lots of friends, ran around a lot and got quite a haul of presents. Krysta had enough friends to play with, though she was exhausted by the end of the day.
Play centre parties are great! – no cleaning up! I am with you there. But they can be VERY funny about people photographing the kids – Worse is swimming pools though. The presumptin seems to be that you are taking photos of swimsuit-clad kiddies for nefarious purposes – we had one of Otto’s parties at a pool and I had to apply for a photography permit!
Some people have phobia’s, I have a few, but this bit about photographs and all photographers being evil is a societal level phobia It is sad and annoying.