I feel obligated to write about the BBQ, even though as an event, I think it stands on its own. The people who came seemed to have a good time, and the people who couldn’t come… well… maybe they had a good time, too.
First off, it was hot. Super hot. Outrageously hot. I wished we had enough room inside the house to hold everyone, but it all turned out ok.
About 45 minutes before the BBQ was to begin, the pig roast guy called to say that he’d had a little car trouble. Apparently, while driving to our house, one of the doors fell off of the company van. Fell off. Crazy. So that was our one thing that went wrong. Thankfully, things didn’t get worse.
The best part of the day was that I got to see some people I don’t get to see a lot. Of course, Pat visited from Washington, which is nice. Berta’s sister Mary Ann and her husband were there. Stan and Johnny came. The guys from D&D came, and so did Tony from the PHP meetup. Of course the guys from Rock River Star wouldn’t miss a BBQ with beer. Some neighbors even wandered down.
There were also a lot of people from Berta’s office, and I feel bad I didn’t get to spend more time with them. I did get to meet one of Berta’s co-workers that she talks about all the time but never comes to any of their company events. So that was nice.
Everyone’s kids had a great time. We pulled out the moonbounce, which was entertaining. Berta got a ton of little water pistols that were fun, but I think the water balloons were appreciated by everyone, adults included.
We did the pirate treasure map. I think it was a big success. The kids (and parents) had fun searching for the clues, and the map was a big hit. I think next time, I’ll have to do one for the parents, too, with more sophisticated clues.
The food was great. Everyone brought great stuff. Good salads, dip, applesauce, and desserts. The pig went over well. The BBQ sauce… I really need to get some of that for later in the summer. It was good.
In the evening, I did some really lame “magic” tricks from this mentalism video I’ve been learning from. While waiting for Michael to sober up (fail!), we unwisely got out the fireballs to juggle. That was a crowd-pleasing end to the evening. Yes, if you left early, you missed the fire-juggling.
Apart from some lost kids shoes, I think the BBQ was a success. The cleanup wasn’t too awful the next day. My only real regret for the whole day is that I didn’t get any of the Bousum’s sangria.
