A colleague of mine was retiring, and he purchased himself a Jeep Rubicon to celebrate. He envisions himself doing a lot of off-roading in his retirement.
It was the perfect opportunity to plan a Jeep retirement party for the office!
I don’t have many Jeep items at home to reuse – I used a little metal Jeep leftover from our Wild Kratt’s party and a Jeep blanket that I’ve had for years…it came with my circa 2008 Jeep.
We had a large room with 3 long rectangle tables, and 8 round ‘high top’ tables – each with white tablecloths. I created a few printables and a digital sign to build some ambience. The printables were used in wooden picture frames and placed on each table. The digital sign was displayed on the computer monitors in the conference room.
A local balloon merchant came in and created two balloon stands, and I packed up my wagon with a few decorative items from home.
I designed stickers, and had a local printer print them up for me. They were stuck to short brown paper bags filled with popcorn and placed on each table.
We had a potluck lunch, so for my food contributions I provided chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, “Jeep” style sugar cookies, popcorn – flavored with Trader Joe’s Elote seasoning, and fresh squeezed lemonade. Other colleagues brought pizza and KFC. We also had a local dish called Tumpeng. It is a mountain-shaped cone of cooked rice accompanied by side dishes. It was so delicious!
We had loads of fun celebrating our colleague and sending him off in style.
We have a few colleagues departing this summer, and I hosted them for a Bon Voyage dinner.
Jackson went to a friend’s house just as the party was starting, so it was just the adults.
Mixing and matching my champagne glasses with my mom’s I started with welcome glasses of bubbly. We also had crackers, cheese, fruit, olives, and nuts to nibble on. I’m glad we had these set out, as all but one guest arrived 30 minutes early. The last guest arrived 40 minutes late! We know she got stuck at the office and then stuck in traffic, so we waited for her before we started dinner. We had a nice time chatting and gathering information on the best carpenter, tailor, etc. while sipping and nibbling.
For dinner, I had set the table using my mom’s china. We found the pattern while poking around at her Home Goods store one day. There was only one plate on the shelf, but she loved it. I tracked down the pattern – Tonquin Blue by Royal Staffordshire – and started her collection. It was bittersweet to use her china. It is a beautiful pattern and it makes me think of her. But I would much rather that she be here to use it herself. I practiced my calligraphy by creating place cards for everyone – using blue ink on white cards.
On the menu we had Beef Tenderloin with horseradish sauce, miniature roasted potatoes, garlicky green beans, and an apple, walnut, feta, craisins salad with homemade raspberry dressing. We had miniature raspberry trifles for dessert, with homemade pound cake. We also had homemade gingersnaps and shortbread to nibble on with our tea and coffee.
We talked and laughed and had a great time. And then Jackson came home from his adventures. It was time to get him to bed, so the dinner party concluded, and we agreed to get together again soon.
This is a terrible picture of us, but I’m including it for posterity. These are really great colleagues! (and the hydrangeas on the table were gorgeous!!)
Our Administrative Professionals Day celebration was such a success last year that we had to do it again this year!
Our theme was “It’s a Jungle in Here”. I used up leftover party decorations from Jackson’s Wild Kratt’s birthday party and created a Pittsburgh style cookie table.
I designed the invitation, the table signs, and poster. I even made a PowerPoint presentation-creating the slides in Adobe Illustrator.
I planted wheat grass seeds in glass jelly jars a week in advance and used them as centerpieces, with jungle ribbon and an animal native to Indonesia (like this Komodo dragon and this orangutan) in each one. They were so cute!
For the cookies, we had:
Pizzelles
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Miniature cheesecakes
Oatmeal craisin with white chocolate chips
Philly K Cookies
Nut horns
M&M cookies
Macadamia white chocolate chip
Italian Knots
Brownies
Peanut Butter Kiss cookies
The event was another huge success. We are already tossing around ideas for next year!
Jackson turned 10 this year – double digits!! After much deliberation, he decided that he wanted a Minecraft party and so I got started with the planning.
Creating games and activities that stayed on theme, but also had elements of math, science, and art was quite a challenge – but in the end, I was quite happy – and so were the kids.
The party was scheduled after school on a Friday – so we had a pizza party. When the kids arrived, they were each given a personalized VIP all access pass and then selected the toppings that they wanted on their individual pizzas. The kids ran around for a bit as their pizzas cooked and then after our bellies were full, we started with the activities.
Deciphering the encrypted clue
Activity 1: Mining: Geocaching/Scavenger Hunt
This one was a challenge! I wanted a geocaching hunt, but I was unable to set the coordinates for each cache, with enough accuracy for the kids to find them. I tried lots of apps and re-set coordinates a few times before deciding to focus on the ‘hints’, and to scrap the coordinates part of the activity. I encrypted each hint using the classic substitution cipher to make it bit more challenging.
It was dark and pouring down rain. We were all running around outside in the rain, trying to find the clue to the next cache, which held the clue to the next one. In the midst of all this madness, we discovered that one of the clues was missing! I’m not sure whether the wind/rain blew it away or whether it was the ‘suspicious looking’ older kids that watched me hide them! I ended up telling the kids where to go next. Most of the kids were really engaged and enjoyed this activity. (especially finding a clue in the locked ice cream cooler and frantically asking the venue staff to unlock the cooler so that they could reach their next clue!) I had two that were totally not into it.
The last clue led us to a ‘diamond’. It was actually an egg-shaped ball of tissue paper filled with candy and treats. We played a quick game of ‘pass the parcel’ before sitting down for an art project.
Earlier in the week, Jackson and I painted 12×12 square canvases with a background of green for creepers and pink for pigs, and created grid marks with chalk. I got the idea from Pinterest.
At the party, the kids used a pattern to color in the grids using different hues and shades. This was a bit messy, and the kids could really be creative. Everyone seemed to enjoy this activity, and they all took their canvases home.
We sang Happy Birthday and had cake and ice cream before moving on to the final activity.
Activity 3: Hunting: Nighttime swimming with a bouncy slide!
It was dark and the rain had stopped. I threw inflated cows and pigs into the pool, and the kids had to ‘hunt’ for them. They were supposed to pose for a picture with the Instax camera when they caught their ‘meat’, but it was too dark. And the kids were having too much fun! They got to swim for about an hour before the pool closed.
I’m glad that I decided to use an outside venue to host, so that I could enjoy more of the party. It worked out great. I was so happy to have a few extra hands to help. I did have to pack up all of my party decorations and supplies and drag them home, but otherwise, they did all of the cleanup.
The kids took home party bags with 3x3x1 Rubic’s cubes, pickaxe pencils, Minecraft vinyl stickers, ring pops, licorice TNT, their canvases, and their VIP name tags/lanyards. I had also planned for them to take a few instant photos of themselves enjoying the party, but they just did not turn out.
The party was a success! And a week or two later, a mom randomly approached me and said they were at the venue the night of the party. She said our party looked like so much fun, that now her son also wants a Minecraft party!!
In my line of work, promotions are hard to come by – we compete against our peers to fill a designated number of spots at the next pay grade. Even if you have been recommended for promotion by the promotion boards, there might not be enough spots. In this instance, you miss out on the promotion, and start all over again the next year.
I should have been thrilled when the stars aligned and I was finally promoted. However, I learned that I had received a promotion on the same morning that I learned my mom’s passing was imminent. It was an awful morning, and I was certainly in no mood to celebrate.
Now that a few weeks have passed, I took advantage of the Columbus Day holiday and invited a few colleagues (who were also promoted!) over for lunch. We had the day off, but the kids had school, so we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon talking about how we got to where we are today, and the next steps – for our next promotions!
We started with a glass of champagne to toast our success.
I added fresh squeezed lime juice, lime wedges, and simple syrup to the tray. Then of course, I opened the champagne!
We had fresh lime sodas and mango juice to drink.
We had Italian wedding soup, Greek salad, fresh Italian bread, and baked ziti for lunch.
And for dessert we had tiramisu and pizzelles, served with hot tea and coffee.
I made the tiramisu using this recipe from All Recipes. All of the tips I read insisted that I use real espresso. So, I had some delivered from Paul cafe!I’ve tried this recipe before, cooking the eggs in the pan, and my eggs curdled. I now use a ‘double boiler’.A friend gifted me her Kitchen Aid stand mixer when she received a new one. It is still running strong on the transformer! (Note the UHT (shelf stable) whipping cream.) Most recipes call for Marsala wine. I didn’t have that, and I didn’t have any rum, so I used cognac. I tried dipping the ladyfingers into the coffee on a shallow plate, but I ended up dunking them in the measuring cup with tongs. That worked best for me. After they were chilled, and ready to be served, I sprinkled them each with a bit of unsweetened Hershey’s cocoa powder.The table was set – ready for food and guests! I put each tiramisu cup on the little boards, with a fresh mint leaf – plucked from our herb garden.
I mentioned earlier that promotions are hard earned, oftentimes taking 6, 8, 10 years or more to achieve. Technically, I am competing against each of these ladies for future promotions, but this was a warm, friendly gathering – each of us sincere in celebrating each other and encouraging success.
