Adventures, Being Crazy, and Sweet 16

I’m quite the adventurer. I present this photo of me skateboarding near my daughter’s house as proof.

This second photo is more how my adventures really go. I need a lot of help to pull them off. That skateboard is kind of wobbly. I think I only went about six inches on my own. If that.

So, now you know the truth—I talk big, but inside I’m a big coward. That’s how it is with me and birthday parties, too. My youngest daughter is 16. She wants a party, and unfortunately she’s due for one. Party lover that she is, and she hasn’t had one for probably eight years. Grief!


Every day turns into planning day, she FB’s her friends asking them for advice, she Googles for party ideas. Some of her ideas make me nervous.

Fear Factor is one of her ideas. She wants to make her friends eat a bunch of gross stuff. “It’ll be fun,” she says. I’m not so certain, but my husband chimes in, “We could go to the store and buy pickled pigs feet and make them suck the jelly from in-between the toes.” I’m still not buying into the idea. I don’t think making her friends sick at her party is a good idea.

She finds another party idea—put clothes and make-up in a bag and have the girls dress the boys in whatever is in the bag. That could be a cute idea IF all the players were game for it. But my son will be there and I’m certain that no amount of money or coercion will convince him to do something like that. I figure he’s not alone.

We decide on pizza, bowling, and then games back at our house. Sounds harmless enough. EXCEPT—the day before the party we discover that there’s been a miscommunication with the bowling alley—they have league bowling that night. AARG!

Now what?

True adventurer that I am (or crazy person), I come up with the idea to let them go to the hot tubs—a place that utilizes the natural hot mineral springs in the area. It’s a crazy idea but my daughter loves it.

It’s been raining all week—we have water puddles in our backyard to prove it. I wonder if anyone will be crazy enough to come. Will their parents let them come? My son suggests that I form a back-up plan. He doesn’t realize that this is the back-up plan.

The night of the party, there is no miraculous parting of the clouds, although I am grateful that the rain isn’t heavy and the weather not obnoxiously cold. I’m also grateful that enough of her friends are crazy enough to come, and that their parents are crazy enough to allow it.

She had a good time, and her friends did, too. This last picture is of my daughter after playing her “stick your face in whipped topping to find the gum and then see who can blow a bubble fastest,” game.

It ended in a whipped topping fight—but the dog was more than happy to help clean it off the floor.