Mood Lite: First up, Doug's Party

Everything has to start somewhere. First let me clear away some small items of business. I have no announcements to make. Cheryl is not currently pregnant. I am not reading anything interesting right now and Cheryl reads so fast that it makes keeping an accurate post impractical. This is the first post in the first public blog for our family so don't worry about catching up on historic posts as there are none.

Having read many friends' blogs, I have come to believe that these online musings serve a purpose beyond posting pictures and stories for far off friends and relatives. As a while, they form a communal bonds very much like those enjoyed by a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business. I like small towns and as far as I am concerned, this is a good thing so hence this contribution to the community.

Today's entry is regarding Doug's birthday. He is 11 years old today and last Saturday we had a party for him. He wanted to host a kind of role-play mystery adventure where he and his guests would go room to room on a fantasy medieval quest. We took on this challenge and developed a storyline, recruited decorating and casting help and generally prepared for hours to somewhat successfully host a 15-20 minute adventure. Fortunately, the kids were victorious and not much crying occur ed. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our friends who gladly came over to help out. The famous Rigby twins, Dana and Sarah, who spent their Saturday with us and helped place spiderwebs and other props and Sarah even stayed on as our hardworking tavern wench. In addition, Joe Ambrose made a convincing ghost and Jillian Tueller was our outstanding Spider Queen. In addition to the castle cake, Cheryl baked round loaves of bread and so called pigs-in-a-blanket while I deep fried a turkey and fries for that not so authentic look and feel.

While I am satisfied that it turned out well enough, I did learn some lessons. First, inviting kids to a party is a very intricate ordeal. If you invite the brother do you invite the sister etc. and before you know it, you have triple the number of expected guests. It's great to have everyone but it does strain the resources and can make planned activities a lot less organized. Second, your most carefully laid plans will not get executed like you think. Again, this is fine but be sure that you are flexible enough to handle these surprise changes. Third, take lots of pictures before and during the party. The actual event goes so fast that before you realize it, the trap has been sprung or the treasure found and the memories are already fading. I think even staged pictures, while annoying is useful. Take lots of shots as well. As the pictures below will show, you don't know when your hand is shaking or the light was wrong.

Every time we finish one of these parties, the inevitable question is, "what will we do next?" At this point, we don't know, but hopefully we can maintain the fun factor.

The Castle cake