Strange night indeed...

We started at 8:00 and were at about 60 by 8:45. from 9:00 - 11:00 you couldn't move across the room without saying "excuse me" 5 times. We did our judging at 11:00 for about a half hour, and back to dancing and fun.

We totaled up about 80 guests - a number of short-stays, and some late shows - we had 2 large groups ( 8 & 6 ) no-show. It was about 30 kids and 50 adults.

EVERYONE brought something - because of the food contest we promoted - and there is quite a bit of left-overs. Alot of the stuff that people brought was awesome. My Father-in-law won best tasting with his 15 lb. meatloaf foot. and best presentation was a graveyard cake. The margarita jello shots won best concoction.

The killer game - we had some lame killers, and some lame die'ers, but about 20 people died. We gave out a medal for the best die'er and best killer. I was really hoping to see at least ahlf of the party die.

The kids abandoned the scavenger hunt about half-way thru - they just didn't co-operate (last year they did 10 clues in about 40 minutes and got the treasure, this year they did 5 clues in almost an hour and quit). Mostly the same kids plus some new kids, and
even a bunch of the same hiding places, just with different clues. Maybe I might have made a few clues kinda tough, but I'd have helped em.

I spent about 2-3 hours putting together a video-picture hunt - closeups of various things around the party, almost all visible from where you could the screen - and a few people started it, but overall, it was a bust.


The 30 minutes of rain put out the fire in the firepit, casue the rain came after the fire was unattended for a while and had died down a bit.

Moose, our 140 lb. Great Pyreneese dog - who is just the friendliest dog you'll ever meet - go out from the basement and started mingling with the crowd at about the busiest point of the night. almost 40 inches tall at the top of his head, a number of people were quite surprised by this "polar bear" wandering around. I told everyone he is a Chihuahua in a big dog costume.


we didn't make much food - we ordered 6 foot hero, DW did 15 lbs. of wings on Fri - tonight they were heat-n-eat, and 3-4 trays of hors d'orves. and then she GOT TO PARTY TOO! Never before has she really been able to relax and enjoy herself. She'd always been working the food. By 9:30 she was coasting, then she helped out with judging. Everyone brought the right amount of stuff... There are some leftovers, but not too much. If half of the 20 or so no-shows did come, we'd have almost no leftovers...

One of the moms of one of the other kids volunteered to handle them all, and she did a great job with them, until the invited kids left at about midnight, she then promptly got really deservedly drunk. THANKS DES! We hardly knew they were there...

I even got to party a bit too, but I run the games and the manage the coming and going (gift bags and such). Next year, I will have someone do that, so I can party too.

Overall, it was a great night. We got about 15 "Doing this again next year?" while 30+ of our are family who KNOW we do this every year.

Now to de-construct it all... After I take the decor pics I was too busy decor-ing to take.