low_delta

The party was fun. The weather was perfect. Mid 70's and sunny. We had more than 55 people, and a dozen kids. Plus a couple of babies and four dogs. Aside from the occasional outburst from the dogs, it seemed a little more low-key than last time. But we had almost twenty fewer people. The kids are getting older, so maybe they were louder than before.

The food worked out pretty well. Hardly any left over, except the snacky stuff - chips and whatnot. Lots of beer and water left, though. And that's putting aside the additional beer brought by guests.

Here is a link to Cyn's photo album.

Well that was fun. I got around to spend a little time with almost everyone here. I was a little disappointed that more people didn't stay longer. We had some no-shows, but we had a few extra people show up that we didn't expect, so the numbers were about the same. We expected 75 people plus 16 kids, and we got 72 and 18.

I'm amazed at the amount of food leftover. We had bratwursts and burgers. The number of people expected times 1.5 equals the pieces of meat purchased. We had almost half the brats left, and fewer than half the burgers. I can think of only three vegetarians here. We did well on the number of drinks, though.

It was a really good party. And the quality of the party has to do with whether the guests had a good time. And the guests having a good time depends on the guests. That means we had great guests. We had family, friends, LJ friends, coworkers and neighbors.

Last time, we had 56 adults and 24 kids (80 total). This time we had 38 adults with about seven kids. Last time I was a little bit sick. I was just as tired after this one as I was last time, if not more so.

As usual, there were quite a few guests I didn't get a chance to talk to. Disappointing, but I got to say hi to everyone, at least. Pretty much everyone found other people to be sociable with, but I try to spend more time with the people who don't know other people.

The neighbor from across the street came over. She was happy to be invited. It was her first invitation to anything since her husband died, around Christmas. The neighbors from behind us came over. They said they hadn't been in the house since the first owners lived there. So they've been living there for thirty or forty years. The neighbor from across the street had lived there for 21 years. They had never met each other. They seemed to have a nice time talking with each other.

People told Cyn's boss they had seen pictures from his retirement dinner. I wonder what he thought of that. He probably didn't figure out that pictures had been posted on the internet. :-D

My friend Steve did most of the cooking. I am grateful. I would have preferred to do it myself, and have him help, rather than me helping him, but this way worked better (which is why we did it).

It rained and winded for a while, but it hardly even delayed dinner. After that, it remained cool and breezy, so the mosquitoes didn't bother us much until sundown. I am nevertheless grateful to Sue for bringing us citronella candles.

I don't think anyone who told us they *might* come actually came. Everyone there either said they would come, or didn't tell us anything. And a couple told us they would, but didn't.

Most of the beverages consumed were alcoholic. Water was a second, and hardly any soda was drunk. Last time, many people brought food to share, and most of it was eaten (meaning needed). This time, not many people brought food, and more was not needed (meaning nobody should feel bad they didn't bring any). Both times worked out well.

We need some outdoor games. Someone brought ladder golf, which was cool. I'd like a set of bocce balls, but our lawn is awfully lumpy. I should fix my lawn darts.

Here are a few pics:


Friends, Pat and Dennis in back, and my mom, sister and niece.

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I'm tired.

It was a good party. I think everyone had a good time. I was a little worried we wouldn't have as many people as I hoped, but it was a good group. We had just over forty people (including children), altogether.

Ug. Tired. Being a little under the weather, I was a little tired all afternoon, but taking charge of all the cooking for a couple of hours took a lot out of me. Many thanks to my sister for helping with that. And the new grill was fabulous.

Guests started arriving around... 1:30? It started getting pretty busy by 2:30. We haven't done a full head-count yet. Preliminary shows 56 adults and 24 kids. It was great to meet a few LiveJournalers. There were a few nice surprises - people I didn't expect to see. Lots of kids. Lots of noisy, messy kids... playing hide-and-seek throughout the house.

It was hot and sunny through much of the afternoon, then it clouded over a bit, which was nice. Then it poured for a few minutes as dinner was starting to wrap up.

Still a bit of cleaning to be done tomorrow... afternoon.

My mom likes to bake and make food for people. She suggested that she could make all kinds of things for our party. We talked her down to just baked beans, lemon bars, fudge bars and bok choy salad. Yesterday, she said she was also going to bring deviled eggs. Today she called to ask if we wanted her to bring a trifle. And said she's bringing a cheese dip and crackers. And made four different bars - lemon, fudge, raspberry and maple/chocolate.

We had originally planned on having our big party on this past saturday. We changed it to July 8th.

On saturday, just as we left the house, I saw a car drive by that looked like a coworker's. I though that was strange, since he lives in Milwaukee. About half a mile down the road it occurred to me, that he'd be coming up here for our party, and what if... what if he really was coming for the party. Let's say when I printed out the invitations to take to work, I accidentally grabbed one that had the wrong date on it? I ran down a list of how that was not possible, or at least not likely, and convinced myself that that's not what happened... except for that nagging feeling. I had to wait until I could ask him at work on monday.

Sunday night, I got an e-mail from someone telling me that she was sorry she couldn't make the party. Ack! That's two! Possibly. I asked her to check her invitation, just to be sure, but she didn't get back to me last night.

So today at work, the coworker said he was in town, but for Strawberry Festival, and he didn't come by my house. Whew. And the other friend told me that she'd misread the date on her invitation. Whew again. That would have been awful, to have sent out invitations with the wrong date. Funny how both of those coincided like that, and happened on the original date. But then I just found out that someone else got the date wrong, but thought it was a week ago.