And the prep for Max's birthday begins...

Chapter 15: Preparations for Max's Birthday

Over the next several weeks, the entire Bushido-Akio clan did some preparations for Max's birthday and they know that all Max wants is a simple, intimate dinner with his friends and family and he's gonna give him that...while the Jade Palace masters are busy prepping up for the final birthday bash, trying not to go over-extravagant with decorations, food and amazing fun things.

Samurai was assigned for the menu, Arizona, Musaki, Tsunami and Phoenix were getting the gifts and Miyo was busy developing the cake for Max while the rest of them assisted in any way they can for those duties and before they knew it, several of the people of the Valley of Peace wanted to participate in any way they can...most of which don't even know Max, but some do know the Bushido-Akio family because they're like a part of the community who are more than willing to pay it forward.

As the valley gets busy, Max and Blaze spent most of their time flying around the skies and Max felt like he's got total freedom with Blaze as they go way up in the air without a care in the world and he's just stoked up about being 12 in less than 2 weeks and he keeps wondering what that age would feel like soon because he knows most of his younger adopted siblings went through that age and he's hoping that it'll turn out to be an amazing experience as he gains a little bit of self-acceptance as he gets older.

Blaze looks at his tiger friend and he just saw Max feeling so happy and it makes him happy to know that he's happy as he kept flying up in the air further from the Valley of Peace and as they headed to Blaze's secret place, both of them spent most of the day just goofing off, laughing with each other, make faces on the reflections of the water and even a few water fights.

Blaze became the first person to splash on Max and just laughed, but Max playfully smirked at Blaze and splashed him back as well and both of them exclaimed, "WATER FIGHT!"

Both of them splashed water on each other as they're laughing with each other and chased each other playing tag all around the meadows, just not having a care in the world.

Meanwhile, time is starting to come down fast as Miyo makes some preparations on the butterscotch cake as she bakes the layers and sets the cake in the oven and makes the butterscotch frosting to go on top of the cake with a strawberry filling and she found a picture of the Jade Palace masters standing on the Jade Palace steps and that's the number one thing Max would want...so that he can remember them by.

"Max...we are all gonna miss you when you leave soon." Miyo whispered.

Samurai preps up the menu at home as he makes some of Max's all-time favorite foods; fried rice with shrimp, orange chicken with rice noodles, dumplings and also fried wontons along with cookies for dessert and with help from Zoey, Cody and Reiko, they're able to make it ahead of time before the dinner while Mako, Sierra, Summer and brought in the decorations to set on the day of his birthday.

Akashi and Saori were thinking of things to make his birthday at the Jade Palace more simple, yet some of the Jade Palace masters were thinking of different ways to make it all extravagant for him and Viper hinted that it has to be made simple and subtle...not too many surprises all at once.

Everyone had pitched in to help Max's birthday one heck of a celebration that he'll never forget and make this one the best one he's ever had because they all have one common goal...

Making Max feel special.

Stick around to see many more!