Bethany’s Birch Bay Birthday

What a great day we had out at the Birch Bay Waterslides! Bethany & her friend Emily (with a little coaxing from their mothers) decided to have a combined birthday party with a bunch of friends out at the waterslides. I have never taken my girls to the waterslides before, even though I grew up going at least once a year. For some reason I didn’t think it would be fun to take kids to the waterslides. I was wrong. We had a total blast. Of course, I didn’t have the little girls, who would have made me worry all the time, and I didn’t have Ed, who would have constantly bombarded me with “Do you have enough sunscreen on?” and “I’m gonna go sit in the shade” and “This sun is torture” (even though it was not a hot day), and I had 2 friends and 13 tween girls sharing the day with me. Let me just say, tween girls at the waterslides totally rock. They love everything. They love each other. They don’t complain. And they giggle. Continually. All the way down every single waterslide. (Unless they’re screaming). Cracks. Me. Up.

The birthday party gang

Sarah and her friend that we invited along

The next set of pictures is not for the weak of heart. You must be strong and know before you read this that Sarah was not hurt during the taking of these pictures. She was not coerced to participate in these activities. The mother was the one was objected.

I firmly said, “If you go down that slide, I don’t want to know.”

What is that, like six stories high?

Gulp.

Never in a million years did I think she would do it.

Okay, that’s not true. I was pretty sure she would do it. I’m the one that would never do it.

I just didn’t think that afterwards, she would coming running to find me, jumping up and down, and laughing with glee. “I did it, Mom! I totally went down the Chute! I’m gonna do it again!”

Okay. So, now that she had done it once and lived, I figured I could probably watch and take a picture to document the event. I should have taken video. I’m pretty sure there was screaming.

There she is. Ready to go.

There she goes!

As she went down, my stomach went into my throat.

As she got closer to the ground, however, my stomach settled right back down.

Viola! She’s alive! And smiling! And she did it again later on in the day.

Now, next to this “Chute” is a very fun ride called “The Black Hole” which sounds way more ominous and deadly than it is. Essentially it’s a river raft ride in complete darkness. And it’s fast. And tween girls scream ALL the way down. I giggled. I promise. I did not scream. I giggled. Like a tween. It was totally fun.

See the screaming? So funny.

Here – just cuteness.

And the birthday party gang once again. Lots of giggling trying to take this picture. I have about 17 shots, but this is the only one where everyone is mostly looking in the right direction and everyone’s eyes are mostly open. They’re so tween.

In fact, these girls fit so well into the tween “cliche” that 8 of the girls shopped at Justice for the gifts. This is a store that knows tweens. And none of those gifts from Justice were duplicates. And Bethany loves all of them. Thanks for a great day, everyone!