8.29.2009

Party At Our House

Last night we hosted one of the neighborhood's Friday evening get-togethers. They happen on front lawns when the weather is good. Everyone kind of wanders over sometime after work and brings a little something to share -- snacks, wine, etc. We went from about 5:30 to 9:30. The weather was iffy, and it started to sprinkle at one point, but then it cleared up and turned into a beautiful evening. I thought this morning about how you could spend so much more time and energy planning a party, but it would be no better than this one was. During the day on Friday I did a little cooking for it -- because I was up early, I made some crackers (used the pasta machine to get them flat), a great hummus with toasted walnuts and a pepper oil, a plain sour cream dip, cucumbers from the garden, a bunch of grapes, and some brownies out of a box. Doug had picked up nice beers at Westover the day before. Later in the evening we had some pizza delivered.

Then during the day we had a neighborhood trip to the zoo, so I didn't have time to fuss around with anything. We got home from the zoo about 3:30, I went to the store to get ice, and rushed around a little pulling out the cooler, chairs, tables, and Doug was home early to help too -- but still, the effort was way less than we would have put into any other kind of entertaining.

You couldn't have had a better gathering -- everyone just mingled, and the kids had a great time. I worried that we didn't have any toys, but they just ran around and totally enjoyed themselves with absolutely nothing extra. Not one of them melted down. These new baby monitors are so great -- people can put kids down to bed and then come over and have a good time and hear if babies wake up.

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