This little one...
...recently turned 11. To celebrate her birthday, she decided to have a pool party with her besties. My parents have a really nice neighborhood pool near their house here, so we had a perfect location. (My parents primarily live in Ohio, so yes, we were going to throw a party when the parents were out of town. Woohoo!) I emailed the moms of the four invitees, and amazingly there was a date near Jewel's birthday when all four girls were available. We just needed nice weather. This summer has been a mix of extremely hot, humid days and thunderstorms. Neither one is great for swimming, because yes, it can be too hot to swim. We've experienced it. We've also postponed a birthday party due to a hurricane, so there is tropical weather to contend with in late August, too.
Not that it usually has much accuracy around here, but I started checking the forecast ten days out from the party. And I checked it daily. I just couldn't help myself. The weather fluctuated between abysmal (severe thunderstorms all day and a tropical system looming) to very promising. Thankfully, the morning of her party was gorgeous. And it was supposed to stay that way through the early afternoon before "tropical storm-ish" (yes, that is what the weather forecast said. Really) arrived in the evening. I realized we were going to be able to get in the party as planned.
Jewel's party was scheduled from 11:00 - 3:00, and the full plan was for everyone to meet at my parents' house, head out to lunch as a group, and then go back for swimming, ice cream sundaes, and presents. Jewel and I planned to head over early to decorate, and Jeff and the other kids would join us closer to the start of the party. We had planned to leave at 10:00 and, amazingly, by 9:45 we were ready to go. We had the many, many bags of things we needed loaded into the car and we were even dressed and looking semi-presentable. (The good part about having the party not at our house - less cleaning and yard work. The bad part about having the party not at our house - we actually had to plan ahead and take everything over. I'm more of a "grab things as you think of them" person when it comes to entertaining, so this was a bit of a challenge for me.) I walked outside and all but spun around in the sunshine while I waited for Jewel to join me. At the last second I grabbed a magazine to read since we would probably have extra time before the guests arrived.
We got in the car, buckled up, and then I went to start the car. I discovered it had a dead battery. Really dead. After 4 or 5 attempts to start the car, I grabbed Jeff who confirmed, yup, dead battery. So I assessed the situation. The rest of the family was not yet ready to go. Also, in order to get everyone to lunch, we needed both vehicles since we had 10 people to transport. Hmmm. I decided the best course of action was to do SOMETHING, so Jewel and I took off to decorate as planned.
While driving, options started running through my head. Back at our house, Jeff was doing the same thing. When Jewel and I arrived at my parents' house, we unloaded the car, put away the cold stuff for the sundaes, and started decorating. Jeff and I had a couple of phone discussions throughout this process. He had one plan. I had another. By the time the balloons were blown up and the streamers hung, we had agreed on a new plan. I stuck a note on the front door in case any guests arrived before we returned, and Jewel and I took off again.
We went home and grabbed Jeff and the siblings. The new plan included stopping by Taco Bell to buy them a 12 pack of tacos (and a bag of burritos. The kids have definitely started really EATING). That way they could chill out at the house while I took the other girls to lunch. The Taco Bell stop made me nervous because you never know how quickly you will get food there, but thankfully, we were pretty quick.
Of course by the time we got to the house, a guest was waiting for us. Thankfully everyone is good friends, and it was no big deal. Jewel enjoyed having a friend help her finish setting up the sundae bar for the party and the craft station where they planned to decorate beach balls.
The party itself was great. The only challenge was the girls had so much fun at lunch that we were there FOREVER, and we needed a little more time for the party. (Because four hours wasn't enough!) Thankfully I was able to get in touch with all of the parents, and everyone was allowed to stay a little longer. I was even able to corral everyone for a picture. (Shoving juice boxes in their hands helped. And it's not like we tried for anything silly like actually getting everyone to look at the camera.)
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