Greg's 40th Birthday

Greg hit the big 4-0 this week!  His last surprise party was 10 years ago (You guessed it!  When he turned 30!), so I figured he was about due.  I decided to keep it small, just a few close friends and relatives.  Basketball is his favorite activity after programming, and I'm not sure how it would work to have everyone program together, so basketball was the next best thing.  I rented a gym at an athletic facility for 1 1/2 hours.  Everyone was to meet outside our door at 7 p.m.  We would arrive at the gym by 7:30, play until 9, and come back home for dessert.  He's crazy about fruit, so I asked everyone to bring a fruit dessert.

Miraculously, Greg didn't find out.  And it was truly miraculous.  My brother got the day wrong and called a month early asking where everyone was.  Thankfully Greg and Kylen were out, but he decided to stop by anyway since he and his wife and baby had driven an hour to get here.  His wife even made a beautiful fruit bouquet they left with us.  Later when Greg and Kylen got home, I told them my brother's wife "got fancy with the fruit."  ;)

Not long after the above incident, Greg told me he didn't want a big party and asked if we could invite the McD's over.  That worked out, because they were on the guest list anyway.  Mr. McD loves to grill, and Greg had been thinking it would be super cool to have him hang out while grilling a bunch of meat.  They arrived at 3, and the men went to pick up salmon, sea bass, and beef wellington.  Greg had already purchased rib eye.  The wellington gets baked, so that left 3 different meats to grill.  I was planning to sit down at 5.  We sat down at 6:30.  If you do the math, you realize that only left a half hour for us to eat before our surprise guests arrived, and you can only imagine how nervous I was the hour and a half leading up to that moment.  Praise God, when the doorbell rang, we were all nearly finished.  I looked at Greg's plate, and he had just 3 bites of rib eye left.  Phew!

We ended up with 10 players, a few observers, and a few late arrivals who didn't play.  It was kids versus adults.  Some of the adults definitely took it easy on the kids, but I think everyone had fun and worked up a good sweat.  They played almost nonstop.

It was after 9:30 when we got back.  There were two blueberry desserts that were delicious.  My favorite was fresh blueberry fritters from a local doughnut shop, but the homemade blueberry cream pie was also excellent.  We had apple Danishes, lemon meringue, and of course a lovely fruit bouquet.

Soon it was time for gifts and cards, and before we knew it, it was getting pretty late on a school night.  Greg said he would rate the party 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, so I guess it was a success!!

Greg serving himself sea bass!

Who's at the door?

Playing Ball

The oldest guarded the youngest.  Lol!

My aunt meeting my brother's daughter for the first time.

Chaos after a photo.

Our friend Eric being his silly self.

They have a really neat mural on the wall at the athletic facility.  Greg and I are both Gonzaga alumni.

Blueberry fritters!  Yum!

Greg gesturing as we sing happy birthday.

Eating dessert.

My funny uncle and his daughter.  I gave out the mini basketballs as favors.

Carrie and Eric - so cute!

I found a perfect card for Greg.  The front said "Bleep Boop Bleep" with a picture of R2-D2.  Inside said, "You're the droid I'm looking for."  Isn't that sweet?!

We thought it was odd when the McD's gave Greg hot cocoa and marshmallows . . .

It made more sense when he opened a huge basketball mug from them!  And it was filled with cute little candy basketballs.  He also got a couple of Panda Express gift cards (my suggestion as a gift idea, since he loves eating there), an expansion pack for Apples to Apples, and a Coke hand towel (something he requested for when he's drying off Cokes from the cooler).

I already have a few ideas for his 50th!  Stay tuned . . . that's only 10 years away!

CLEAN Black Light Party

Sonshine turned 12 a week ago today, and I am pleased to announce that he is not yet taller than me. We know it's coming, we've been expecting it for months, but the big moment has not arrived! Kylen measured in at a mere 5' 5 1/4", 3/4" short of 5' 6''. HA!

We settled on a black light theme this year, which proved a bit of a challenge. Apparently black light parties often involve dancing and/or substance abuse. Those obviously weren't directions we wanted to go, but between bits and pieces gleaned from the net and adapting a handful of common games, we managed to get good results. And it may have been one of our easiest parties!

A huge advantage was our pre-owned arsenal of glowing gadgets: black lights, laser machine, plasma light, moon nightlight, and left-over glow sticks. We figured there was a treasure trove scattered 'round the house just waiting for illumination. This part actually proved to be a lot of fun, especially when we began our hunt in Kylen's room. A good portion of his LEGO collection was in the middle of the floor. We flipped the switch, plugged in the black light, and went scrounging. Greg and Kylen turned up enough glowing bricks to build some models while I looked around for other potential decorations.

Our search continued into the basement where we had some significant finds, not the least of which was dice and golf balls. I decided to use the crystal as a unifying base: an interesting combo with the neon. My plan was to light the pieces with glow sticks, though in the hustle and bustle they didn't quite get activated.

Uncolored velvet posters are great. Highlighters are incredible, particularly yellow, orange and pink. (There were enough girls there to justify a sprinkling of that color, with our options being so limited.) Kylen requested a visible schedule of events, which I created with highlighter on white cardboard. It looked fantastic -- wish we could have gotten a decent shot! A couple of his posters had enough white to serve as wall space filler. We purchased a small, portable black light for testing items in stores (with lots of hurriedly mumbled explanations, since it looked a lot like a gun): candles (all white was best), crepe paper (white again), tablecloth (white!), napkins (guess what color?!), and neon orange plastic cups called "Brights." Also, blue plastic spoons. The tablecloth was paper on plastic, so kids could doodle using highlighters in the tried and true colors. We also found neon plastic stars to scatter 'round.

Guests arrived to see the laser in its full glory. Everyone with vaulted ceilings should try one of these. The effect just can't be described in words. We gave demos of the aforementioned gadgets complete with a lecture by geeky Hubby on the science behind black lights. They played classic games of Hide and Seek, Heads Up 7-Up (with light sticks), Thief (a modified game I learned at my uncles, which I will post on sometime), 20Q (glows in the dark), and a quick dice game. One of our talented young guests gave us an impressive card/magic show that garnered lots of laughs!

All too soon, it was time for dessert and gifts. We served chocolate cake with homemade chocolate icing on an orange glowing platter. After a few final rounds of thief, the kids took home a clear bag with glowing noisemaker, stretchy ball with light, and highlighters (from Michaels), glow sticks, a mini black velvet poster, and a few plastic neon stars. This really was a fun theme!

I went crazy on the pictures.  Here is a sampling:

Crystal & Neon

Highlighters

Decorations & Favors

Invitation in Day

Invitation Under Black Light

Piano & Stars

Otherworldly LEGO Landscape

Greg's LEGO Creation

Under Black Light

Moon Nightlight

Kylen's LEGO Creation

Laser Machine

Velvet Poster in Day

Velvet Poster Under Black Light

Socks

Crystal & Neon

Cake

Blowing Out Candles with a Straw

Loved Our Guests' Table Art!

Sonshine



Star Wars Party

Kylen's ninth birthday party was a blast! Pun intended! This year he decided on a Star Wars theme. Greg had already been working on a program to simulate words moving through space like at the beginning of the movies. He spent about a week on the invitations, which were DVDs. By far the most involved invitations we've ever done, but people loved them! We even printed DVD face and case covers. The movie was 17 minutes long. It started and ended with a video clip of Kylen at two years of age talking about Star Wars LEGOs. VERY CUTE!!! Then, Greg used his program to do a little sequence with a story about Episode 9: Return of the Birthday. This was followed by several scenes from the movies with our own voice-overs talking about the party. For example, the scene where Yoda was cooking, we had Luke asking about the food at the party. It turned out pretty funny!

Decorating was a breeze. We already have black and white decor which I use during May/June in honor of Greg's birthday/Father's Day/graduation month. We filled the shelves with Star Wars LEGO models and had mostly Star Wars pictures on the walls. The only decorations we needed to buy were a birthday banner, black tablecloth, and confetti stars to scatter. We used balloons and crepe paper left-over from previous years. We also wore costumes. Greg was Han Solo, I was Princess Leia, and Kylen was a Jedi Knight.

Food included Dog Sabers (hot dogs), Cheese Sabers (string cheese on sticks), light and dark chips, Light Sauce (guacamole), Dark Sauce (salsa), and Sith Salad (pasta salad), Yoda Soda (blue punch), and Darth Mault (red punch).

We kicked off with an R2-D2 Demo, which was our gift to Kylen. The first thing Greg did was to ask if he remembers Darth Vader, which we finally figured out puts him in a VERY disagreeable mood. Once you do that, he refuses to obey commands. However, he still garnered lots of laughs with his stubborness and head shaking. Very popular with the girls. After the party, they whisked him off to another room for additional "training." Kylen took this picture:

Next, the children were ushered downstairs for a couple of games. The first was called Droid Debris. We wrapped several small prizes (glow-in-the-dark balls and stars, fake gems, a few dollars) in wads of aluminum foil and scattered over the floor. The kids were divided into two teams: Empire and Republic. Each end had six circles, half in one color and half in the other. Smaller children were placed at the end closer to the aluminum balls. On the signal, they were to gather as many balls as possible and place in their own circles. Then, all the balls were counted. The final score was actually extremely close, something like 70 to 66! Of course, they got to keep their treasures. Plus, we gave them each a stretchy flashing ring.

We had the kids form two lines and shoot Corellian Space Monkeys (Screaming Monkeys) into a target with holes. You pull the arms back on two fingers and sling-shot them through the air. It took us a couple of runs to realize the target was a tad too far away. Only a couple of kids made it in the holes. Prizes were large polished rocks.

We all came back upstairs and played Name that Sound. Greg had recorded lots of clips from the movies such as blaster fire, Jabba the Hut talking, etc. and threw in a few extras for fun: snoring, cow mooing, the Road Runner. Prizes were water yo-yos. Greg gave all the rewards neat-sounding names and background stories, such as what planet he found them on, etc.

Thankfully, we got the cake made the previous day. It was a rushed decorating job late at night, but it turned out OK. Kylen wanted something with two light sabers crossing. Frosted half red with orange highlights to resemble fire (representing the dark side of the force) and the other half a smooth blue. I made the two light sabers out of fondant. At least it tasted good, since we made the cake and frosting from scratch. We always make an extra 9x13 (not decorated, just simply frosted) since a 9" round isn't big enough for 25-30 people. Not much was left!

Suddenly, the lights dimmed, The Imperial March started playing, and Darth Vader (Greg) came out to dual Kylen. We borrowed the costume from my brother, and it's quite realistic. A couple kids were scared, but I think it went pretty well. They even used the force to push eachother back at times. Once defeated, Vader said, "I am your father!" which got lots of laughs. Wish we could take the credit for that idea, but it came from the net, along with many other things!

Finally is was time to open gifts. One of his favorites was a Star Wars cookbook. He loves to prepare food!

At the end, I gave all the kids Galactic Putty and a glow stick. They also got a sheet of scratch stickers. I know, I know. Excessive. It's only once a year, and I like to spoil them. It's so wonderful seeing everyone have a good time!