Party time at the Park Cancelled!!! When Mother Nature makes other plans for you!

In true @mumofmany style, we never do anything simple.

Today was meant to be Birthday party time in the park for my gorgeous little men! However, the disaster that unfolded was not my fault. Mother Nature had other plans.

Last night we had a massive thunderstorm. Power went out, then came on then went out again. Our back yard has been blown to bits. All the toys are everywhere and it flooded. So first thing this morning we jumped in the car and went down the road to check the park and make sure we could still have the party.

We were met with a disaster zone. You couldn't even access the park. Massive gum trees were blown down. The fence was missing in some spots and heaps of toys had trees on them. The road was blocked and I couldn't even get close enough to take photos of all the damage. It was absolutely not safe for kids or adults and we would have to come up with a plan B.

We attempted to go and look at another park in the next town over, that was also not going to happen, all the roads were closed. Although the back yard at home was a no go zone, the kids could play inside and ofcourse there was cake and nibbles so the party was moved to our house.

I quickly started calling everyone to tell them the new plan. Unfortunately, lots of people could not come. With so many roads closed and damage to some of their homes many of them had to stay home and start cleaning up.

I contemplated cancelling the party, however I have said it before, those of you with children who are Autistic know you can not change plans at the last minute. Even if it only ended up being just us, this party was going ahead. So after an hour of mad cleaning, decorating and explaining to Master 5 that we could not go to the park for the 1000 time. We were ready for who ever could make it.

Thank goodness we had a couple of brave friends who drove through the aftermath of the storm. The lack of turn out didn't stop the fun. Within minutes of everyone arriving the kids had all disappeared into bedrooms to play with toys and games while the adults all settled down to coffee in the lounge room.

I only saw them again when I made the announcement that cake was going to be served. They all came running up the hall. We only ended up with one cake, after the storm we couldn't get through to the shops to buy more icing sugar for the other one to be finished (for that story check out my post from yesterday, it explains why cake number 2 wasn't finished last night).

Happy Birthday was sung, cake was eaten and just like that they disappeared back to the rooms to play. Considering the lack of planning and the chaos of the morning the whole thing went of without any real drama.

The friends that did come along all had fun, they especially liked leaving the party with extra lollie bags (I had made enough for 30 and only 8 were able to come, so I hadn't to offload the extra candy while I could). We have made plans to catch up with everyone else latter in the holidays.

So while the day was not simple, it was fun and now I can concentrate on getting things organised for Christmas. Which in case you were wondering is only 15 days away!!!

Thanks for reading.

@mumofmany