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We had a party!
Jun. 30th, 2024 08:02 pmThe weather started out being predicted to be very nice, but as time passed the forecast high temperature got lower, and in the event it was quite cloudy and cool, which was not as congenial for lake lounging as preferred. Also the party was slightly earlier in the year than usual, so the water was a little cooler than usual.
About 30-40 people came, I think. No kids, so we ended up not using the tube, but quite a number of people were interested in just having a power boat ride tootling around. It was pretty windy, so when we were at the downwind end heading back up wind, the waves were pretty big and we plowed through them in a splashy way. One group decided that three of them should sit in the bow, and I didn't realize just how different it would be in handling, and we got quite drenched! But it was warm and dry enough that we didn't need to change our clothes. Ken also took a bunch of people out on the sailboat. So the lake definitely got used. There were also a few kayakers.
I had set up a croquet set, but nobody used it. We also set up a badminton set, and that did get used. And we had two screen houses for people to sit in for either eating or playing boardgames, and we did have one group play boardgames in one of the screen houses.
We had also set up that canopy in the front yard, thinking based on earlier forecasts that it would be sunny and people would need the shade. In the end, nobody really sat under it. And, the wind was high enough to be a problem, and eventually it started to collapse and I said "let's take this thing down" so a bunch of us pitched in to deconstruct it. I tried to cram it into the box, but it didn't really fit into because we had not rolled it up very tightly, but this morning Ken and I worked harder at making the canopy top smaller and were able to get all the parts into the box. Which is now too heavy for one person to carry.
So at least the people who came seem to be fine with the "outdoor only" aspect of the party. Since we didn't have a rain date, I don't know if anybody was checking the webpage that I referenced in the initial invitation; I was putting daily comments about the weather report during that last week. We were thinking we didn't want to spam 200 people if it was going to be delayed, if there were only going to be 30 people coming. I should have thought to ask attendees if they actually looked at the party webpage, or if they just looked at the weather themselves and decided that it wasn't canceled, or decided based on the lack of cancellation email.
Somewhat less "public food" was brought, and so almost everything got eaten, including all of my vegetarian things: tempeh (question number one: "what the heck is this"), marinated eightball squashes from the garden, and Portobello mushrooms marinated in garlic olive oil. They were smashing. For dinner tonight I used the tempeh marinade as stirfry sauce. I don't think anybody actually went hungry though; maybe they had hot dogs rather than the steak tips they were hoping somebody would bring.
About 30-40 people came, I think. No kids, so we ended up not using the tube, but quite a number of people were interested in just having a power boat ride tootling around. It was pretty windy, so when we were at the downwind end heading back up wind, the waves were pretty big and we plowed through them in a splashy way. One group decided that three of them should sit in the bow, and I didn't realize just how different it would be in handling, and we got quite drenched! But it was warm and dry enough that we didn't need to change our clothes. Ken also took a bunch of people out on the sailboat. So the lake definitely got used. There were also a few kayakers.
I had set up a croquet set, but nobody used it. We also set up a badminton set, and that did get used. And we had two screen houses for people to sit in for either eating or playing boardgames, and we did have one group play boardgames in one of the screen houses.
We had also set up that canopy in the front yard, thinking based on earlier forecasts that it would be sunny and people would need the shade. In the end, nobody really sat under it. And, the wind was high enough to be a problem, and eventually it started to collapse and I said "let's take this thing down" so a bunch of us pitched in to deconstruct it. I tried to cram it into the box, but it didn't really fit into because we had not rolled it up very tightly, but this morning Ken and I worked harder at making the canopy top smaller and were able to get all the parts into the box. Which is now too heavy for one person to carry.
So at least the people who came seem to be fine with the "outdoor only" aspect of the party. Since we didn't have a rain date, I don't know if anybody was checking the webpage that I referenced in the initial invitation; I was putting daily comments about the weather report during that last week. We were thinking we didn't want to spam 200 people if it was going to be delayed, if there were only going to be 30 people coming. I should have thought to ask attendees if they actually looked at the party webpage, or if they just looked at the weather themselves and decided that it wasn't canceled, or decided based on the lack of cancellation email.
Somewhat less "public food" was brought, and so almost everything got eaten, including all of my vegetarian things: tempeh (question number one: "what the heck is this"), marinated eightball squashes from the garden, and Portobello mushrooms marinated in garlic olive oil. They were smashing. For dinner tonight I used the tempeh marinade as stirfry sauce. I don't think anybody actually went hungry though; maybe they had hot dogs rather than the steak tips they were hoping somebody would bring.
