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 celebrated Independence Day on June 11this year with a Hawaiian theme.
My job was to organize party favors and pass them out at the end of the event.
Typically, U.S. companies donate merchandise that we pass out as our guests are leaving. Unfortunately, this year, we did not have many items to give away. I had some food coupons, highlighters, and cookies.
Due to budget constraints, we purchased only the bags – hoping for additional donations. I ordered the bags from a local company, and I designed the artwork for the front of the bag. It had to be simplified to meet our budget constraints, but I’m proud of my work! I even incorporated the event slogan – Spirit of Aloha.
I organized a team of twenty summer hire students, and taking shifts, we managed to give out over 1000 ‘thank you for coming’ gifts!
It was so hot, and so humid. I’m glad it is over…and we don’t have to do it again until next year!!
As Webelos assistant den leader, I planned the activities and kept a record of attendance throughout the year. I ensured that all scouts received credit for the adventures that they had completed. I went back through WhatsApp messages to make sure I credited those scouts who sent photos of the work they completed at home, and I worked with parents to help scouts wrap up adventures that were still outstanding.
Then, as awards coordinator, I followed up with the other den leaders to ensure an accurate accounting of the adventures their scouts had earned. Honestly, that was the biggest challenge.
Once I made sure my tallies were correct, I organized the belt loops, pins, badges, and awards by den. I attached all the “bling” to card stock and paperclipped the cards to an envelope. The envelope listed all the adventures earned, so the Cubmaster could read off the envelope during the awards ceremony, and afterwards, the scouts had a safe place to store all of their “bling”!
Once the cards and envelopes were organized, I created a PowerPoint presentation – complete with a photo of each scout engaged in a scouting activity from this past year. Next to each photo, I listed the adventures that were earned. Having the presentation organized by den allowed the cubmaster and assistant to easily follow the program and hand out the awards in order. The scouts got to see their pictures up on the big screen along with their list of accomplishments, which helped keep them entertained while waiting for their turn to be called up for recognition.
Once all the kids received their recognition, we thanked the parent volunteers with certificates of appreciation and parent pins. We said farewell to our cubmaster of three years. Gifted him with an Indonesian Batik map, a Yeti coffee mug, and a multi-tool pocket knife. Then we welcomed our new Cubmaster.
After the official ceremony, we played live action game of CLUEDO (based on the board game Clue) – where the scouts were given cards with another scout’s name, the name of one of the six essentials, and the name of a location in the party room – in the doorway, sitting in a chair. They had to tag the scout named on their card, with the item listed, in the location listed. Once tagged, they were out. The scouts had a blast playing this game while the parents chatted over coffee, samosas, and donuts.
We are all ready for a good rest over the summer, but also excited about the adventures awaiting us in the fall.
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!
I think this was the longest birthday party that I have ever been a part of!!
The mall was an hour away from home – we left around 11am. Our taxi made a few wrong turns, so it ended up taking us 1.5 hours to get there.
We had a surprise when we showed up and found that the birthday boy was not there! He was sick (contagious) and the venue would not agree to reschedule the party. Instead of cancelling, the family decided to host the children without the birthday boy. He joined for a few minutes by video chat. We sang Happy Birthday to him, and then we went off to celebrate his birthday without him.
We started at lunchtime. There was fancy catering set up, but of course Jackson was so excited that he only ate two bites. The iFly was divided into two sessions. While one group of kids did the iFly, the other group ran around and enjoyed the other rides in the mall. There were go carts, roller coasters, and a snow zone. It really was an amazing day, and so unfortunate that the birthday boy could not be there.
Jackson loved the iFly. He loved playing in the snow. He loved driving the go-carts. By the time I dragged him away, it was dinner time. He was getting hangry (remember, he had virtually no lunch) and wanted sushi. I was irritable and wanted to go home. A few other families were still around as well, and we agreed to grab dinner together once we coralled the kids. In the meantime, I tried to grab a snack for Jackson, but there was no food available as it was during Ramadan. There were few prepacked snack options, but they were on hold/reserved for those breaking fast. We went to the food court and found that everyone had put their names on waiting lists – to eat once fasting time was over. We were 10th in line at Genki Sushi, so we continued to try and find a place to eat in the mall, but there were no openings. It was now around 7pm. We did stop at a frozen yogurt shop called Sour Sally. They were out of ‘regular’ froyo but had ‘black’ froyo. We gave it a go, and everyone loved it!! We will definitely be back.
We wound our way back to the sushi restaurant, and there were only a few names ahead of us. The kids were starving, the parents were starving. We finally got seated and ordered. This was a lot of fun – it was almost worth the wait! We used an app while seated at the table to order what we wanted and they brought our orders out to us. We could keep adding to our order – and they would keep bringing the food out, and when we were done, we closed out the order and paid. Everyone left full and happy. The parents got a good laugh looking at our American kids gobbling up sushi and dumplings!
You would think that we could head home now, but one of the mom’s reminded us that the kids needed black t-shirts for the musical rehearsal in the morning (for their head shot photos), so off we went to a shop called uniqlo for black t-shirts for the kids.
We got lost going home. We made it home at around 10pm…11 hours after we left the house.
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!!
