Celebrations

This beautiful weekend was spent celebrating one of Jackson's friend's birthdays at a local karate studio and heading to Downtown Appleton's Oktoberfest. The birthday party was a lot of fun. I had no idea they rented out karate studios for parties. This was awesome: no mess to clean up, boys run to exhaustion and having a GREAT time, and the added bonus, a sensei to organize it all and keep them in line. I'm not sure what this kind of a party runs but it's worth every penny!

Oktoberfest was a first for us. We had never been and since we were down at the mall for other reasons we thought what the heck. So we parked at one of their parking lot pick up locations and took the bus in. That was a good call, the place was pure pandemonium. All I saw when I looked down College Ave was people, a mile of solid people. Needless to say we enjoyed the people watching but really the music was what we were there for. With 4 stages there was plenty of options. After an afternoon downtown we were all spent and appreciated a bus ride back to our car versus fighting the crowds.

With a weekend as beautiful as this one you really can't go wrong.

Roasted corn at Appleton's Oktoberfest. Jackson devoured this like a beaver.

After awhile the crowd was really getting to Jackson. Chris and I were getting a bit claustrophobic too, College Avenue in Appleton was CRAZY!

I had to take a picture of this "Exotic Meat Snacks" sign.

Alligator, Venison, Ostrich, Wild Boar, Kangaroo, Elk, Buffalo and Beef

And underneath that, "Deep Fried Peanuts"

Ummmm, no thank you.

Sparing with his buddies.

JUMP!!!
This was a fun activity where the sensei swung a rope around in a circle and the boys had to jump while picking up the 5 pads which were laid down in a semi-circle. Then they had to put them back, all the while jumping over this rope.