Last week we had our annual open house at work. It used to be a Christmas party, but my bosses decided early last year that they wanted all the group homes to spread their parties out throughout the year. We weren't too happy about it since we would get a lot of donations due to the holidays. Everyone picked a date, but the other houses were slackers, and we ended up being the only house not to do it in December. We had 2 kids graduating high school and our program last year so we did a summer kickoff party instead. Only 7 people showed up. We had food for 60.
This year we did a Hawaiian theme. We had lots of good food (honey chicken, BBQ flank steak, mahi mahi) and went all out with the decorations. I hooked up a mini wall of TVs and showed surf DVDs with a soundtrack of beach themed music I put together. We had a much better turnout too -- about 50 people showed up. It looks like we may get a new weight bench and free entry and poles for some fishing tournaments this summer from some of the Optimist club members that came.
These parties are always a lot of fun, but a pain to put together. I ran around all week after work buying the food and decorations. The boys don't care about it beforehand, so they usually try to fight things every step of the way instead of helping out a little. Most of them have never heard of a party without lots of alcohol and drugs to go around. And I don't know how many times I had to explain that the senior citizen donors that were coming probably didn't want to hear their stereos blasting 50 Cent and Tupac. I did manage to get them to wear Hawaiian shirts and leis so at least they looked festive.
This year we did a Hawaiian theme. We had lots of good food (honey chicken, BBQ flank steak, mahi mahi) and went all out with the decorations. I hooked up a mini wall of TVs and showed surf DVDs with a soundtrack of beach themed music I put together. We had a much better turnout too -- about 50 people showed up. It looks like we may get a new weight bench and free entry and poles for some fishing tournaments this summer from some of the Optimist club members that came.
These parties are always a lot of fun, but a pain to put together. I ran around all week after work buying the food and decorations. The boys don't care about it beforehand, so they usually try to fight things every step of the way instead of helping out a little. Most of them have never heard of a party without lots of alcohol and drugs to go around. And I don't know how many times I had to explain that the senior citizen donors that were coming probably didn't want to hear their stereos blasting 50 Cent and Tupac. I did manage to get them to wear Hawaiian shirts and leis so at least they looked festive.
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