Epilogue: Day 31—Celebrate David's 31st Birthday with a BBQ

Note: I began this post on June 7, Day 31, the night of our joint birthday party that completed our 30 Days of 30 Things. David left early the next morning for Kentucky in order to grade AP English exams (Hollie and I stayed home and kept each other company for the next week and a half). Upon David's return, we left for Houston and stayed an unexpected two weeks. We just got home yesterday. I never finished this post. That's why it took so long.

Note, continued: Furthermore, Blogger wigged out on me, and my pictures got all wonkadoodled as I tried to mash them into the right order with the right captions. This frustrated me. I have decided to scrap the first attempt and just give you a string of pictures with captions that will narrate a party we threw over a month ago.

*sigh*

What I tried to talk about in my original posting is the way that David and I were both able to bring our creative energies together with this party—in other words, one of us wasn't the leader and the other the follower (which has happened to us in the past....we usually just take turns playing Leader). It was almost effortless putting it all together, getting the food made, the decorations up, the house cleaned, etc. Considering that we are usually a family that finds the adage of "Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth" only too true, we were very pleased with undertaking a project in which our minds were constantly following the same vibes. It was truly a lovely ending to our 30 Things.

At the end of the evening, David said, "You know, we should just keep doing awesome things everyday.......we just don't need to blog about it all the time anymore."  Apparently I took this statement to heart. But we both love keeping records too much to quit blogging altogether, so you can expect updates on this thing from here on out, you readers of mine (they just won't be daily occurrences—for your sake and mine).

The spread. We made the banner at 1 a.m. the night before. We were quite proud of it.

I made three different kinds of cupcakes: chocolate cake with white frosting, vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, and snickerdoodle cake with vanilla/cinnamon-sugar frosting. The snickerdoodles were the most popular, surprisingly (I'm a chocolate cake girl, myself).

David came up with the idea to make a display using books and records. We learned that morning that Ray Bradbury had passed away, so I made sure that Dandelion Wine had a prominent place. Also, one of the cupcakes had a plastic soldier baked in it a la Mardis Gras King Cakes. The person who found the soldier won one of our grand prizes. (Note the baby crawling around in the right-bottom corner.)

A cute little girl from our church turned eight on the day of our party, so she brought her birthday cake, too. Barbie's dress was made of rice krispie treats. (She also brought her birthday dinner—delicious tuna casserole! Adorable!)

We thought we had more colors of crepe paper at the house, but it ended up that we only had cool colors (cool colors as in not warm colors). It sort of made our living room seem like a cheap Under-the-Sea-themed prom setting. Not that that's a bad thing.

I was the most proud of this banner (also made at about midnight the night before). I finally found a use for the heap of scrapbook paper I have lying around. David was so impressed with my banner that we decided to keep it for future use. I think I'll make a new pennant banner for every party we throw until we can string them all through the neighborhood.

The game that was the biggest hit was the one where you have to open presents with oven mitts. The people next in line toss quarters until they get Heads, then they get to take over. It was hysterical. Our friends are such good sports.

You know it's a good game when both big people and little people get excited about it.

The good ole' trusty "Guess How Many Candies Can Fit in This Jar?" game. I'm the worst at this game. I'm always the one that makes the embarrassing guess. I've decided I like giving the jars of candy away much more than guessing to get a jar of candy myself.

Our last game was a bit Grover-centric, but it was our birthday party, after all. Papers were provided in which guests could fill in the blanks concerning some important event in mine and David's courtship, and then they could draw pictures of said event and hang them from a clothesline provided above them. Prizes were awarded to our favorite drawings.

My favorite part of this one are our strong necks. I also like the ratio of boys to girls in our 18 children.

This was the winning drawing. We really liked the idea of David riding the Starship Enterprise like a horse.

This one is both sad and funny. The hands make me want to watch Ponyo.

Let's safely assume that David is thinking about the literal meat on the shelf in this picture, shall we?

This was a runner-up for favorite (we are both English majors, after all), but the disembodied heads are too unnerving for me. But David and I do feel strongly that people should know the difference between an em-dash and an en-dash. That part is spot on.

It was a really nice time, with really nice friends. Thanks for all who came and brought so many delicious side dishes!

To my family who has waited for pictures of our shin-dig for a month now: sorry for the delay.

Hollie's belated eight-month stats to come! *type type type type type type type*