City of Alexandria to Hold Annual USA and City Birthday Celebration on Saturday, July 13

City of Alexandria to Hold Annual USA and City Birthday Celebration on Saturday, July 13

For Immediate Release: June 27, 2013
The City of Alexandria will celebrate its 264th and the USA’s 237th birthday on Saturday, July 13, from 7 to 10 p.m. at Oronoco Bay Park, 100 Madison St., located at the Potomac River between Fairfax, Pendleton, and Madison Streets. Admission is free.

The celebration includes fun for the entire family, including musical entertainment, refreshments, and birthday cake. The featured performance of the evening is a concert by the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra at 8:30 p.m., culminating with a Grand Fireworks Finale featuring Tchaikovsky's “1812 Overture” with cannon support by the United States Marine Corps Basic Training School beginning at 9:30 p.m. In the event of inclement weather, fireworks only will be rescheduled for Sunday, July 14 at 9:30 p.m.

Oronoco Bay Park has lawn seating, and participants are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets. Refreshments will be available for purchase, but everyone is welcome to pack a picnic dinner. No grilling allowed.

Visitors to the historic district are encouraged bike, walk or take the Metrorail Yellow or Blue lines to the King Street Station and take the free King Street Trolley to the unit block of King St., which is just a short walk to Oronoco Bay Park. The King Street Trolley will operate until midnight for individuals wishing to return to the King Street Metro following the celebration. For DASH schedule information, call 703.746.DASH or visit www.dashbus.com. For Metrobus schedule information, call202.637.7000 or visit www.wmata.com.

Bicyclists may visit www.alexandriava.gov/LocalMotion for the City’s Bikeways Map, which features the City’s best on-street and off-road bikeways, as well as locations of grouped bicycle parking.
Parking is available at the Simpson Properties Garage, 700 North Fairfax Street and the Tishman Speyer, 44 Canal Center Plaza (at a special $5 fee).

For additional information, visit alexandriava.gov/Recreation or call the Special Events Hotline at703.746.5592.

Birthday parties

Just a random thought (rant?), since I've been seeing so much about this on the neighborhood list serves asking about venues, activites, bouncy houses, who to hire, etc., for young childrens birthday parties.

Since when do birthday parties have to be such a big deal???
What ever happened to just having a birthday cake, make your own goodie bags, a craft of some sort, and some fun like treasure hunts, and playing outside? 
Since when did it become a day for spending more, doing more, inviting more, and a party for adults?   
The rule in our house has always been as follows:

• No parties with friends/kids other than family until in kindergarten
• you may have the number of kids for the age you are turning
• no meals - just cake and ice cream - parties are either before lunch or after lunch and before dinner
• we don't do activities until older - activities like bowling or movie
• no sleep overs

Some of our party ideas/themes that we did, at home, are:
and sometimes we did the same theme for 2 years in a row or we re-used the theme for another child.  

• Bugs - bug stickers, make bug catchers, find bug treasure hunt, toss the bug games, bug books,
• Peter Pan - pin the hook on Hook, shoot off stomp rockets, treasure hunt
• Pirates - dress up, build a pirate ship w/ legos, create pirate flags, treasure hunt, make a spy glass
• X Games - all the outdoor games - biking, inline skating, street hockey, pinata,
• trains - build trains, color trains, conductor hats, lantern goodie bags
• Knights - make a knight from boxes, tubes, etc. and paint, play sword fights w/ nerf swords

I'm all for the good old fashioned fun that a small birthday party entails and I just don't get the "bigger is better" attitude. 

Schedule of events for Alexandria Birthday Celebration

Alexandria will celebrate its birthday on Saturday, July 9.
The celebration will be held at Oronoca Bay Park, 7 N Lee Street from 4 pm to 10 pm.
There will plenty of things for the entire family - moonbounce, firetruck, music, birthday cake and more.

You should bring you own blanket or chairs.  And there will be some food/refreshments for purchase but you should bring a picnic dinner and enjoy the evening.

4:00 pm - Exhibits, children's activities and food for sale.
5:45 pm - FourStar Combo Musical Performance - Rockabilly & Honky Tonk
7:30 pm - Presentation of the Park & Recreation Department's CIVIC Awards and Poetry Reading
8:00 pm - Birthday cake cutting and distribution
8:30 pm - Alexandria Symphony Orchestra Performance "Dreams of Summer"
9:30 pm -Fireworks with the Symphony playing Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overature" with cannon support from the U.S. Marine Corps.