Saturday Afternoon
Katherine's friend from day care, Thomas, was having a birthday party at Nathan's Funstastic Fun, an amazing indoor amusement park (complete with bounce house, ball room, ferris wheel, train, arcade, teacups, and a cafeteria of birthday party tables). Three hours of noise and rides and screaming kids and running around like maniacs.
Katherine had a faboo time. At first, she wanted to go on all the rides by herself. She's always been a daredevil with roller coasters and other thrill rides, and showed it here, too, finding "The Whip" to be a particular laugh-inducing indulgement.
Ultimately, after the cake and gift exchange, she spent the rest of the outing with Thomas, going multiple-multiple times on the train. And on the Whip. And on the slide. Much fun.
In the arcade, she showed herself particularly adept at stomping spiders, earning max tickets multiple times.
My sole regret is having not brought a camera. Or, I suppose, earplugs. (Doyce called me mid-visit, to inquire about a gift for Margie. "Are you standing on a freeway or something?" was his initial inquiry.)
Saturday Night
Margie and I did a "fancy dinner" for the folks who successfully bid on it at our church's Harvest Auction a year-plus ago.
I went from screaming kids to formal dinner service. Though there was plenty of clapping and laughing and enjoyment along with it.
A menu can be found here. The full dinner, across all courses, ran about five-plus hours. Everyone was raving about it, calling out Margie for applause after each course. I cannot express how proud I am of the job she did.
(And, yes, I served as sommelier and sous chef and waitstaff. So I'll take my minor bows. But Margie did 100% of the planning and 99% of the prep and at least 75% of the work, so she deserves the major kudos.)
The party of eight got an incredible deal for their $215 bid. The raw materials went for pretty close to that, plus labor and planning. Margie's goal was to do a dinner that nobody would ever serve to guests because it would be too much work for the host and hostess. And she succeeded magnificently. The various folk there -- none of which were strangers to opulence or fine dining -- all agreed it was one of (if not the) most incredible dinners they'd ever had.
Good work, love.
Now we just need to deal with the leftovers (food, wine) before we head to California for the holidays ...
>...before we head to California for the holidays …
Avoiding Riverside like the plague again, I presume. :-\