A Party Like No Other

Let me start off by saying, I wish I had better pictures to show off this amazing residence.  That's right, this is someones house, well their second house.  Better described as the party house, they built next to their primary residence. The two are connected by a cat walk on the 3rd floor and an underground tunnel.  When you park on the street there are stairs leading down to this floor.  It looks like an Italian piazza!  There's a game room, a bar, a stage with a dance floor, a pizza oven with seating, a wine room, another bar, a banquet hall and a full motion movie theatre all on this floor alone.

Here are the teenage boys I recruited to help us.  All the free games they can play before and after the party, of course they agreed.

My friend Ann, who I should tell people, runs an award winning environmental assessment firm, but I love her because, amongst other things, she also knows how to pour a drink.  I owe her so much since she agreed to play bartender for the night.  Her husband, who is on crutches with a broken ankle, was our Games Master.  Great friends!

A shot from the bar looking toward the dance floor and then further off, the pizza oven and bar.  Oh and did I mention we had sangria?! It was delicious.  I bought that stainless steal tub at Costco, we will be make good use out of that.

That's the stage where the band played.  The Jeff Nelson band, whose a friend of a friend.  Over by the pizza oven we had a string quartet play at the beginning of the evening.  That was one of Dr. T's former students.

From the bar, toward the game room.  Look at all those pinball machines!  There must have been at least 25, plus all the other arcade games.

 This was the party favor.  My very favorite Pop's Kettle Korn!  Completely addicting.  This is the type of snack I hide from my family so only I get to enjoy the dark chocolate goodness.  I might share with hubby, but only because he buys it for me.  The kids, definitely not.

The busboys trying out the horse racing game.  Funny as all get out to see their little tushes bouncing in the air in an attempt to win.  I only wish I would have taken video instead, unbelievably hilarious.

 

Thanks to my friend Kimberly for insisting we take a picture together! Next time we need get a friend to play photographer for the night.

January 12, 2013

Tech-A-Thon

1st stop of the morning: Smart & Final, to purchase ice and cups for the Jog-A-Thon. 

 

The students are running today to help raise money for the brand new Mac computer lab, to the tune of $18,000.  Fingers crossed we reach our goal.

Each homeroom class wore a certain color or matching shirts.  This is his class, the blue shirts.  Two boys from Liam's soccer team ran the most laps of any students there. Very impressive!

 

March 25, 2010

Soccer

Notice the matching jersey for the game?

 

Each time he reallys does prep for "When they need me to run onto the field". 

 

Wonder when, or if, he'll notice this doesn't actually happen?

 

March 22, 2010

The Clothes Hulk & Beachwood BBQ

Liam decided to go through his clothes and pull out all the ones that were too small. 

Since Jake was over he helped...by trying on every single thing, together, at the same time. 

21 shirts later he was the Clothes Hulk. 

These boys crack me up!

Tonight we drove to Seal Beach with Mere & Pere where we had dinner at Beachwood BBQ.  I snapped a photo of all their different sauces. 

 

Great food, tasty french fries, bit of a wait, but they have a huge selection of drinks.  We'll definately go back.

Conveniently located right next door is a bakery. 

 

Rett and Liam were looking in the window at these delicious cupcakes; Red Velvet.  We had to go in and buy some to take home.

 

March 21, 2010

A Divine Evening

Cousin Jen and her Divine friend Laura came over for dinner. 

We had the South of the Board Tri Tip salad from Stonefire, my favorite. 

When Tim got home we had him set up some tunes on the turntable for us.  Lots of fun singing along, especially with these two songbirds! 

Oh and Rett did some magical dancing...I really need a video camera for moments like those.

March 20, 2010

Liam's Guitar & Salsa Dancing

Grandma gets Liam his own guitar! It's a Yamaha. Can't wait to see if his Guitar Hero skills cross over to the real thing.

Coach Stacy and Rett at Playball

At Tapas enjoying the Spanish cuisine and Salsa Dancing for Barron's Birthday.

February 5, 2010

Asleep in the Sun & Too Cold to Swim

Why would anyone jump into a freezing cold pool? You're a middle schooler and your friends dare you to.  It was about 50 some odd degrees.  COLD! 

Rett was a little bit stuffy and feeling sick.  But he wanted to watch Daddy work on the window.  He got a pillow from the sofa and put it on the floor in the sunshine and then fell asleep.

 

January 24, 2010

New Year's Day

Had out dear friends over for New Year's Day... When we get together like this we try to take a picture of all our kids too!
The mamas sitting around the table enjoying some Mexican food while the dad's and the kids played in the garage. Aaahhh, so peaceful, for about a minute till someone comes in and needs something.

January 1, 2010

New Year's Eve

The Castle Competition...the little people vs. the big boys

Rett's 1st sleepover!

 

December 31, 2009

Farrell's

The family. All ten of us together.

The friends. All five of them, plus Rett.

The Volcano, 30 scoops of ice cream!....and they asked him to please stand up and sing Happy Birthday to himself, as loud as he could. Sing it loud, sing it proud.

Don't worry, they shared with the whole table.

December 27, 2009

TP Never Again!!

Look at the bags and bags of T.P. they've saved from all the times our house has been T.P.ed!

Flash forward to the next evening: I get a phone call from the dad of the girl whose house they T.P.ed. 

In all of their eagerness to get the rolls up into the palm trees they ended up tossing many, many rolls into the pool, which was just on the other side of the fence. Since they have been to a pool party at her house, they should have know this. 

They went over to apologize, help clean and one of them donned a wetsuit to actually get into the freezing cold water, while it was raining, to fish out the wet T.P. from the bottom.

December 6, 2009

Playdate

A beautiful day for a playdate. They rode over on their scooters, so cool!

Afterward, Rett was invited over to watch a movie. He went without me...and didn't want to leave either.

December 1, 2009

Thanksgiving

Our first time hosting Thanksgiving. The family was out of town, so our good friends, sometimes referred to as our Urban-family, came over to share it with us. Let me just say this was the most relaxing Thanksgiving in 15 years! So much more relaxing than traveling. I think we've got a new tradition.We played tons of games; Write to 100, Left, Right, Center and two challenging card games I can't remember at the moment. Makes me wish we had more game nights.

The kids table. Yes, that's our outdoor picnic table covered with a table cloth.

The adults, inside and closer to the food.

We changed clothes and took the photo for our Christmas card today too. Yay, it's done!

November 26, 2009

Friend Day

Costco shopping is always better with a friend. Two days till Thanksgiving.

 November 24, 2009

Old Friends

College roomies, Joy and Miriam, at the funeral of our friend Andrea.

Had a wonderful night with the girls. Laughter if the best medicine.

November 21, 2009