Bowling Party

On Saturday, Morgan had her 8th birthday party at the local bowling alley. I found a great resource for a bowling party at the Family Fun website.

Here is the bowling alley cake. It was fairly easy to make and turned out pretty cute - oh that is until it fell! Oh brother! Thankfully I got photos before it fell. When I could tell it was going to fall, I called my friend Kym (who does cake decorating) in a panic. She gave me some tips but said if it is going to fall, it is going to fall. I think I need to watch a few more episodes of Ace of Cakes.

Here you can see that where the gumballs(ie bowling balls) are about to fall- this became known as the leaning tower of cake. Lance was gone but when I showed him the pictures he said he could totally have saved my cake. Too bad he wasn't home to save the day! It was definitely a learning experience.

I made shirts for all the girls as their "goodie bag". Morgan had purple and the other girls had shirts in hot pink. I think they were a hit. A few girls were asked if they were on a bowling team! Again, a big learning experience making the shirts. I am definitely a learn by watching and learn by doing kind of girl. There are things I would do differently, like just cut the words out in long rectangles instead of around all the letters - too much work! Oh well! Morgan LOVED the shirts and was so excited to give them to her friends.

Back of the shirt

The party girls

When we arrived at the bowling alley, I went to the desk to tell them we had arrived and they did not have us marked down for a party. The bowling alley was packed full of people and there were about 3 other parties going on at the time. I was feeling a bit stressed -what was I going to do with 8 girls who expected to go bowling! Thankfully, two lanes opened up so we could bowl, but we didn't get the party room or the lanes with bumpers. When you are 8, it isn't so fun to bowl without the bumpers - the level of success isn't there. I will say some of those girls could bowl pretty well, I was impressed. The woman working at the front desk was not extremely helpful or apologetic. It was a little frustrating, especially when I booked Morgan's party 6 weeks in advance. Morgan thought it was a great party and I think the other girls had fun, it just wasn't as fun as it could have been. Truly, I am probably way more disappointed than any of the girls. I did call this morning and talk with the manager. He was great. He apologized and offered us free passes to come back and bowl. My main reason to call was to make sure this didn't happen to someone else. It could have been a total disaster if there would not have been lanes open for bowling. Here are the main lessons learned: call to confirm party, do a test run on shirts, and seek advice from a cake expert before trying a cake with height on my own.