Turning 7 Rocks!!!

My firstborn turned 7 last week.  It truly does NOT seem possible.  I love the little guy too much to have only known him 7 years!!!  In our house the birthday party rule is: Kid party every other year.  Which for me, the mom, means, 1 kid party a year.  woo hoo!!

For Caiden's kid party this year, we took him and a couple of friends to town to rock climb at the local outdoor gear store/climbing gym, The Ledge.  My brother was in town for one day so I arranged for him to participate.  He went a little early and learned the important business of belaying and knot tying.  (Which I am fairly certain that since the guy teaches technical rescue in the Airforce that he already knows the stuff.)  But lucky for us, his willingness allowed the boys to climb with Uncle Brian as their belaying fellow(the guy with the clamp and ropes attached to them when they want to go past the yellow line on the wall.)  As it turned out they didn't really take advantage of his services.  Apparently the yellow line is in a great location for 7 year old boys.

The part they really really liked was jumping off the wall and bouncing on the floor.  Since there was several inches of padding on the floor plus additional pads, they LOVED climbing up and "falling" onto the floor.  I think they had a great time. 

The two girls didn't climb, they loved rolling and jumping around on the pads and talking in the crevice.

There was a side room off the climbing gym where we could enjoy cupcakes and water and take a little break, this worked out great. 

I would HIGHLY recommend this activity for a birthday, what fun! And if you have an Uncle Brian in the mix, I'd REALLY recommend it...but you can't have ours!  besides he's already back on the other side of the world in Okinawa....