Big changes this year. First of all, Derek chose some place other than Chuck E. Cheese! Amazing. He chose to have his party at Batter Up, the indoor batting cages in Merrimack. (Normally I would provide a link to the place, but unfortunately they have since gone out of business.) He also wanted an ice cream cake. He got that. And out of the five friends he invited, four of them actually RSVP'ed. Two said Yes and two said No.
It turned out that the two friends that came were two friends from his baseball team. They were also on his team last year. Earlier that day we had our first practice of the season, so this was even more practice. Derek and I had been hitting three times this spring previous to his party.
The boys got to hit in the cage for an hour. They seemed to have had enough after about 50 minutes, so I got a couple of rounds in myself. I guess it's the new equivalent to our annual game of Arctic Thunder. The boys played some pool and then we had pizza.
They played some more pool and video games and then we had the cake.
After some more games, Derek opened his presents. I had thought that maybe it would be better to let the kids play and not take up time with opening presents, but both of his friends asked me if they could be there when Derek opened what they gave him, so they were the ones who let me know they wanted to see what he got.
The party was a total of two hours, and we were still wrapping it up while the owners were closing the place. Aside from one person in the slow pitch softball cage for about a half an hour, we were the only ones in the place so it wasn't like we were getting in people's way.
When we got home, I asked Derek if he had fun at his party "even though" it wasn't at Chuck E. Cheese. He said "I was the one who picked the place!" I know I enjoyed it a lot more this year too!