We really should have more parties. They aren't that hard to pull together, and they are really fun. We had a great party for Fourth of July. My sister and family were out of town, which was very sad, but we still managed to have thirty some people, half kids and half adults. This year the youngest kid was 5, so there were no adorable babies crawling around, and everyone stayed until the very end.

We had my favorite Fourth of July foods: fried chicken, sushi, and brownies. Mom put out bubbles, so, of course, someone filled one of her fountains with bubbles. (The party is at my mom's house because she has an excellent view of fireworks around the lake.) The kids chased each other all around the house and the garden. One child tried to run through the sliding glass door. He got bonked and chipped a tooth, but thank goodness that was all. When I decided there was too much chasing going on, we played drama games in the front yard. I love that the kids all said yes. There was no "I'm too cool for that" or "drama is for girls." Since all of them are constantly doing imaginative play, it wasn't that much of a stretch.

At around 8:00 we set up a video in one room and games in another. There was a long stage of my life, the post high school pre kid stage, where I threw a lot of games parties. My friends and I didn't really drink; we played word games for fun, especially old fashioned parlor games. Fictionary, categories, name in a hat, password, in the manner of. . . There were board games as well, but that was more John's arena. Now that the kids are older we play a lot of board games. But we haven't had a games party. This was the perfect slow start games party. One large group of children played Apples to Apples, and another 10 of us played password. Once the kids got the concept, they did well, really well. We kept switching partners, but Rose always seemed to win. As much as I deride companies that take regular parlor games and turn them into board games (Fictionary for instance), I think we could use some professional help coming up with password words that can't get figured out immediately. That, or we have to ban Rose.

The fireworks were loud and spectacular and the clean up went quickly. Really, we have to do it again.