When we bought this house I had intentions of having parties here. I thought the backyard would be a great place for cookouts and that the kitchen island would be the perfect place to serve food from. I had exactly one party in our house last year, a book group that I hosted for a friend. Then my life fell apart. My water broke at 27 weeks and I found out the hospital would be my home until the baby was born. The baby came at 29 weeks and the next two months I spent trying to find some sanity in a newborn baby in a hospital a half hour away, three older children who needed a parent, and a husband in his first year of an internal medicine/pediatrics residency. Then our baby came home during RSV season with an ng tube. Needless to say we did not do any entertaining.
But now life has returned to normal. It started with a birthday party for two of the married girls in our ward. Then in the last month we've gone full out. We had a huge double birthday splash party, the missionaries over for dinner, a combined visiting teaching play group, and then just this Saturday a party for Dr. J's resident class. I was excited to have everyone over. What I wasn't excited about, the e-mail in which Dr. J offered up my "delicious Spanish rice and beans." The last resident party we had someone brought delicious Indian food from downtown and we all threw in ten bucks. This time the weight fell on my pretty little shoulders :)
At some point Dr. J realized this was going to be stressful for me. He offered himself up for the slave for the day and cleaned the whole downstairs. Meanwhile I got to shopping and cooking. I made green salsa, pico de gallo, and guacamole. I chopped limes, cilantro, lettuce, olives, and tomatoes. I made chicken taquitos. I wasn't planning on it, but my husband begged. He loves them! I made Spanish rice with green salsa. I made black beans. Then to top it off I made fajitas, both chicken and steak. I threw together a fruit salad just to add a little sweet. Then we sat back to wait.
The first person to show up was Drew. Then Katie. For an awkward ten minutes I thought no one else was going to show. What were we going to do with all the food? Then the rest of the crew came. We had a great meal with lots of conversation. I might not have any money to leave to my children but I do have a few family recipes to share :)
Then Dr. J pulled out badminton and Dance Revolution. I thought the man was crazy. We have a house full of almost doctors and their male spouses and the man thinks people are going to dance. He did the first two and then went out to put up the badminton net with the men. At first the ladies were shoving the wii remote at each other. "You do it, no you!" I honestly didn't think a single person would. But then one reluctantly got up, and before you knew it every girl had gone. Then a couple went together. The rest of the boys came back in. Then another couple went, and another. In the end we had a rocking party. Turns out the group is full of a bunch of dancing fools who didn't even need liquid courage to get the party started :)
I'm really glad that people came to your party, and you had a good time after all that work. I have now signed up to host two different relief society "parties" or rather get to togethers in which not a single person came. Talk about pond scum.
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