I'm sorry if this has been posted before - I tried to search and didn't find anything.
My daughter's 5 birthday is right in the middle of July when its consistantly over 100 degrees. She hasn't really had a birthday party the last 2 years so we want to make this a big one. She really wants a pool party with a bounce house but I am worried it will be too hot for other kids. What do you think? My parents have a pool and have room to put a bounce house right next to it but they live 20-30 min way from everyone.
Any thoughts or any other ideas?
The last birthday party we had was at an indoor bounce house and we tend to go to those 3-4 times a year so we really don't want to revisit that again - even though its soooooo easy and great! We thought about somewhere like Chuck e Cheese but we want to have a lot of kids there and it tends to get expensive - plus she kinda freaks out about the noise.
Re: 5yo summer birthday party (In Texas!)
My DD's birthday is in August, historically HOTTER than July in Tx, her 5th birthday was a "splash" park which is a mini-water park for smaller children. It was 15-20 mins form our home. We had a great turn out and a blast. The party was at 6pm on a Friday night. We had the park to ourselves and had sandwiches, cake, etc..
We required that the party was not "drop off" due to needed the adults to help watch the kids even though the water was 2 ft at its deepest.
This year we are planning on combining my DD (7) and DS1 (5) birthday at the larger water park (in the kiddie area) which is closer to our home (around Labor Day, DS1 is Septmber). They do hotdogs, cake, etc
I think a pool party in July is perfect! You can always do the evenings and I highly recommend putting no drop offs. I would drive 20 mins for a birthday party, heck for a good friend, I drive 2 hours!! And I have also flown to AL for my BFF's DD's bdays
FWIW, CEC is the cheapest party we have ever thrown : ) It was $218 + cake/presents for 15 kids and about the same amount of parents. The splash park was $125 for the rental only (not including food, drinks, cake, supplies, presents), etc The water park will be $10 pp. The jump house was $225 + cake/presents. Awesome that your parents pool would be free~I'd do that.
I'd go
If the backyard isn't shady, can you rig up some shade? Either with canopies or the cheap possibly tacky way we've done it is to use rope and blue tarps - we ran the ropes from eye bolts we put on the eaves of the house and out around some trees.
Oh, and make sure the bounce house has a roof!! otherwise it will be burning hot.
I live in Florida and I honestly dread (to put it lightly) summer birthday parties that are held outside. I think it would be too hot for a bounce house...maybe you could do an inflatable water slide? I would definitely do the party either early in the day or late in the evening, and preferably offer an area with A/C, especially if you will have pregnant guests or babies.
My first son was born on the 4th of July and we're going to try having his birthday party at home for the first time this year. We might do some quick outdoor games and offer an inflatable water slide in the backyard, but we realize that most of the guests will spend their time in our air conditioned house.