no boys allowed

It always feels a little "junior high" to me to be in a group which is all girls and no guys.

Well, last weekend, I had an overnight BBQ & games party at my parents' house, and for the first time (for a variety of reasons, none of which involves anyone disliking the company of guys), I invited all girls.

Things that were different:
- We did an arts & crafts project instead of playing waterpolo-type games in the pool. I like both crafts and sports but I find that when there are guys around, there's less general interest in crafts. Anyway, I thought I'd take this opportunity, and asked my sister to put something together. She came up with a really cool candle-making activity which involved lots of different colored chunks of solid wax and pouring liquid wax on top. Fun!
- There were a lot less people, so there was more time to talk and hang out with everyone. I think my mom and sister had a lot of fun chatting with my friends. My dad went to a dinner party for most of the night; I have no idea if that was planned specifically to coincide with the BBQ or not, but it was probably good timing, since he might have been bored.
- One of the girls put together a trivia game, where we all answered questions about each other. It was really well done; obviously carefully planned, the questions were challenging and interesting, and the question cards themselves were gorgeous.
- We baked our own desserts (chocolate souffles) instead of my mom baking them for us, and they turned out well, which is not a given when it comes to souffles.
- I bought two dozen mini-cupcakes from Sibby's. I probably wouldn't have bought them for mixed company since they're super girly-looking. (Of course we finished them, since they're delicious.)
- One person brought her year-old toddler, and we spent some amount of time making sure he didn't hurt himself or break anything, but it was actually not too bad with twelve or thirteen adults around to keep an eye on him. Plus, it was kind of entertaining to watch him running around begging random people for more cherries.
- I got to do the BBQ-ing. Guys always think that they own the grill, for some reason. Silly people.
- We ate a lot less steak and drank a lot less beer than usual. My mom now has eight extra premium beef filets in her refrigerator. Good thing I warned her and she didn't buy too much beer.

Things that were the same:
- We ate a lot. My mom always has lots of good quality fruit and we gorged ourselves on cherries, blueberries, pineapple, etc. We didn't finish the steak but we finished everything else; chicken wings, BBQ beef, shrimp, squid, mushrooms, corn, Chinese chicken salad, and more. For dessert, we had the cupcakes and the souffle, with ice cream and gelato. For brunch the next day, we had my mom's excellent shi fan (rice porridge), ham and cheese crepes, and scallion pancakes, and then she baked us a homemade rum raisin cake for "snack". So much good food, so little time...
- We played board games until late and didn't get to bed until after 4am. It's so nice to be playing games and know you don't have to go to work the next day and you don't have to drive anywhere afterwards.
- We had a lot of fun. I do like overnight parties. Maybe it's because I wasn't allowed to stay overnight at other people's houses when I was a kid, until fifth grade or so.

gingerbread houses

Last weekend, I had a gingerbread house making party at my place. We spent most of the morning baking gingerbread (thus ensuring that my kitchen and my hair would smell like gingerbread for days) and making icing cement. After the guests arrived, we assembled and decorated the houses in teams of two, and then held a contest (every team getting to vote).

I was pleasantly surprised by people's patience and ingenuity; some teams had construction problems, and other teams had decorating mishaps, but in the end, every house held together, looked good, and there were tons of cute, creative details.

Here are some photos:

house with a snowman	carousel
Fenway Park	my house
bunny house (winner!)	lots of gingerbread houses

mamemomoko love story

Courtesy of joclin and kstroke: a mamemomoko love story

The noises that the girl doll makes when she's trying to get at the beer are especially cute.

arts & crafts

I never get to do arts and crafts anymore. It's a combination of being glued to a computer many hours a day, and not having the initiative to come up with good projects.

Last week, I went to a birthday party where we made little stuffed animals. It's been awhile, and the ultrasuede fabric that I chose was awfully hard (and I had no thimble) so the results were less than spectacular, but I'll share anyway.

The green bunny on the left is mine. I stuffed it a little too full, so it doesn't sit up properly, which is why it's leaning on the yellow cat. Obviously, the animals on the right were made by more experienced craftspeople.

pumpkin time

I'm going to a pumpkin-carving party tonight; it'll be the first time in three years that I've carved a pumpkin.

Last night, in preparation, I went to Safeway to buy a pumpkin. On the way there, I remembered that it was lunar eclipse night, so after I parked my car I looked around for the moon. It was about 8pm, which was perfect timing; it was just after it had started to get really dark, and before the eclipse started to wane at all.

So, for about 10 minutes, I had a very good view of a large brown moon. Honestly, I was less than totally impressed. I've seen some solar eclipses, and those have been much more spectacular.

Others have been calling the color "blood red" and remarking on the eclipse's coincidence with Halloween. I guess it would have been cool if the eclipse had actually happened on Halloween night, and I'd been young enough to be out trick-or-treating.