Phew! Like the song says, oh what a night. We had a wonderful Housewarming party last night. After two days of frantic preparation, attempted unpacking (abandoned toward the end in favor of just shoving boxes into closets and the garage), food preparation, and planning, we pulled it off! We had over 30 guests--everyone from high school friends to camp friends to friends of the family of over 35 years to grandparents and cousins. We did have a surprising lack of parents, hitting only 1 out of 4. Both of my parents were in Palm Desert for my mom's office holiday party, and Kevin's dad and brother were on a Boy Scout campout. Great timing, hunh? So Kevin's mom had to be the general representative.
My brother, Katrina, and the girls (Corie--9, and Seana--2) were there. As luck would have it, our toilet had been on the fritz for the last two weeks and yesterday morning totally crapped out (get it--crapped out? Ha ha ha, I'm so funny!). It required a total replacement mechanism. Luckily we'd bought the replacement but hadn't gotten around to putting it in yet. So while Kevin was busily making pies and cookies, I thought I'd be Little Ms. Plumber and fix the toilet. Get it? Me--fix the toilet? Ha ha ha, I'm so funny! Yeah. So I thought we were going to be down one toilet for the party. Then my brother walked in, and I was like "Hey Brad, I gotta job for you." Five minutes later the whole thing was assembled and running--hooray for my brother!
The girls were fantastically behaved. As soon as they opened the door Seana said brightly, "Hi Doggie!" Scout and Seana quickly became fast friends as Sean continually fed her. Scout also has a ton of dog toys scattered around the floor and Seana kept picked them up and cuddling them. I hope she didn't mind dried dog slobber. There was a moment of panic when we thought that Scout might have eaten one of Seana's binkies, but she was quickly exonerated of the crime. Seana loved our deep claw-foot tub. We'll have to have her and her bath toys over for a good old-fashioned soak.
My one big fear was that we would run out of food and people would go hungry, but that didn't seem to be the case. We didn't serve a full-fledged dinner (the party started at 5) but rather a wide assortment of munchies and finger foods. I figured if we ran out of food we'd just let people know there's a Carl's Jr. 3 blocks away and they could stop on their way home. We served the ever-popular Raclette a Swiss variant on Fondue. It's basically a grill and broiler and you take a little tray and load it up with cheese. Then you put it under the heating element to let it melt and grill veggies and sausage on the top. Then combine and eat! It's awesome and we're having the leftovers for dinner. We were introduced to Raclette by our good friends Marc and Wendy (who, much to our dismay, live in Denver now) and have been hooked ever since.
We had a lot of wonderful wines. We started out with a few bottles of our own, knowing that our "wine friends" (members of my parent's wine-tasting group) were planning to bring some more to share. We even got a few bottles to keep--yum! We got several other wonderful housewarming presents, but unfortunately some tags were separated from items so it's going to take us a little while to figure out who the thank-yous go to. If you don't receive a thank-you from us, let us know!
Overall it was a really wonderful party. We're still rather fledgling party throwers, being in the shadow of my mother who throws parties like Martha Stewart. Actually my mother throws better parties than Martha because Martha has all of her minions while Mom does it on her own. I hope to achieve that ideal one day. I guess we'll have to keep practicing! We're already looking for excuses to throw another party (Kevin turns 30 in February, so hmmmm).
Oh, and we were so busy running around trying to talk to everyone and replenish food and drinks that we totally forgot to take pictures! Sorry everyone. You'll just have to come to our next party and experience it for yourself.
Be sure to read Kevin's review of the party!
Posted by Shelby at December 12, 2004 08:02 PMHurray! Glad it was such a success! I so identifying with the boxes being a half-played Jenga tower in the closets/garage! Congrats on the house and the party.:)
Posted by: Tori at December 15, 2004 08:08 AMHappy housewarming!
I'll need to do that myself before too long, now that I'm moved. (It'll probably be mid-January at the earliest.) As for Jenga towers, I too know the feeling, especially as I discovered I have a little too much furniture for a one-BR apartment. :)
So, with the Raclette, do you do all the crazy stuff the swiss do, like put citrus with cloves all over the house to ensure the house doesn't smell the next day, and eat lots of pickles (cornichons) and onions, and not drink water, and all this? We learned the whole process in Switzerland, and we can't decide if it's all just crazy tradition, or if you really do get sick if you drink water with the meal, etc. etc. But, as it's always better to err on the side of caution (especially since we only Raclette when we have guests), we tend to follow all the strictures to the letter. So I'm curious if you do all this stuff (or some other equally bizarre preparatory rites) or not?
Posted by: David at December 16, 2004 10:56 PM
