Birthday Party - Bounce House Mania IV

Wow. Birthday parties are fun...but exhausting. Thanks so much to everyone who came....I think we ended up with 18 kids and about 25 adults. There was plenty of jumping, sliding, rug burns, a bloody nose, air hockey, basketball shootouts, cake, ice cream, and presents for all! Here are just a few of the pictures from the party:

some blogging thoughts

Just a few things on my mind this morning....

At this moment, I've received 2,999 visits on this blog since starting it back in July. Not a totally impressive number in comparison to many, but definitely more than I would have imagined. That means about 14-15 people are checking this thing out each day on average. I hope it's been fun for those of you reading. Thank you.

In the last 3 days, I've received over 20 visits to the site as a result of this particular referral. The referral is from some type of "city-data" site for Knoxville, and one of the members on there - an individual from Kingsport - was inquiring about bounce houses. Another member - I do not know who this person is - referred them to this blog, and more specifically to a post I'd done a few months back about bounce houses. This is one of the things I find fascinating about blogging. Somehow, over time, you are connected to people you never knew existed.

And for those of you who may be reading this because you thought you were being linked to a well written and informative "bounce house mania" website, I welcome you and hope you'll enjoy your visit.

And finally....Crossings turned 1 year old yesterday. It was an excellent morning. It featured lots of excitement, cheesecake, great worship, a live broadcast video, living room stories, the kids city group providing music and scripture, a compelling message, and nearly 300 people there to be a part of it. The entire team, in all areas, did an awesome job making so many things happen yesterday, and it made for a truly incredibly anniversary.

bounce house mania

Eli & I have a new found joy. The Bounce House. There are no less than 3 of them here in Knoxville. The one we go to has "open play" on Wednesday nights from 6:00 - 8:30pm and costs only $7.00 per child. It's such a blast!! They have 3 of the standard "bounce houses" where you just go inside and just jump up and down. There's an obstacle course just for kids. There's an "adventure course" that he and I both go on, a 24-foot tall slide, basketball hoops, and they offer very inexpensive and healthy snacks.

After about 90 minutes at the Bounce House, we are totally exhausted. My joints hurt, my knees are burned, Eli is sweating like crazy and making multiple trips to the water fountain. It sort of causes me to realize how spoiled our son is when the things that he gets to do on almost a monthly basis (dollywood, bounce house, chuck e cheese, the zoo) are things that I may have gotten to do once every 1-2 years when I was growing up! Heck, the only time I ever remember seeing Bounce House type stuff was at yearly state fairs or carnivals. And then they were so crowded with kids you were lucky to make it out without an injury!

So we'll continue bouncing each month. And I'll continue mentally griping about how I didn't get to do all these things as a kid. Then I'll just make up for it all by doing it now. And then one day my son will make fun of me for griping about all the things I was deprived of as a child. Just like how my dad had to walk a mile to school and back every day, regardless of the weather (this is actually true), and that was after getting up at 5am to milk the cows, and how he never went ANYWHERE - vacation, ocean, amusement park, etc - until he was in his 20's. And then 30 years from now Eli will gripe about how he never got to travel cross-country in 2 hours on a hovercraft when he was a kid, and how he actually had to brush his teeth and scrub his body with soap before the 24-hour-entire-body-clean chewable vitamin came out in 2019.

And I will laugh.