I Miss the 80's

Like a lot. In fact I have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to how much I miss that decade.

One of the coolest things about having a kid is introducing them to all the stuff that was 'cool' when you were their age. Most of it they hate, some of it they love (after, of course, you realize how inappropriate it is -- I mean, seriously, I had no memory of the heavy subject matter contained in various episodes of Jem and the Holograms until Olivia spent a day binge watching per my recommendation and I happened to walk into the room during a scene where one of the Starlight girls pops pills, hallucinates, and then threatens to jump out a window because she thinks she is a bird.

Yikes. I just remember the cool hair and the "We are the Misfits, our songs are better" lyrics.

Anyhow I am rambling.

Back to what I was trying to say before - most of it they hate, some of it they love, but then you have to ban (oops), and sometimes you just get lucky and find an activity you used to love, they now love, and which won't have you ending up on the "Questionable Choices Parent List."

Not only did we find our activity - we built a birthday celebration around it. While I was pleased with Liv's venue choice, I had to put some retro spin on it. I found the above invitations on Etsy and was instantly sold when I saw the throw-back boom box and cassette tapes in all their neon glory.

I love everything about skating parties - the lights, the crazy outfits, the music, the raspberry blue ICEES, seeing kids wipe out on the floor - over and over and over again, only to get back up and take another lap around the rink (how's that for teaching persistence and reslilence). Funny aside - one stranger mom standing next to me and chatting me up said, "Which one is yours?" - I looked out onto the ring to see all the other children skating one way, and my daughter skating in the exact opposite direction making her quite easy to point out lol.

While I would have liked to have gotten all the kids matching neon knee-highs to skate in, pickens were slim at Five Below so I had to mix and match a variety of colors and styles - the mermaid scales were by far the fan favorite in today's crew.

The cake turned out really great, so nice job Dairy Queen for taking care of that for me. And thanks Tia Christy for handing down the roller skates from one of your girls.

They made a nice photo prop for pictures and will save me $4.00 a pop for all of our additional visits; this extra money will certainly come in handy for all the new things you can now do at the skating rink such as laser tag, getting your hair dyed, and visiting the arcade.

Another new addition since back in the day when I spent nights getting my groove on and showing off my ability to skate backward is the ticket machine which Liv looked a bit terrified in. Our wonderful birthday party host, Erin, said Olivia 'caught' 500 tickets which seems doubtful when I rewatch the video :)

Overall it was a wonderful day, and confirms for me that having parties off site, where someone else is responsible for feeding, herding, and entertaining the kids, is absolutely the way to go.