Fun with Friends

I like parties.  I like to go to parties and I like to have parties.  I admit I've become a little lax about having parties lately...like about the last four or five years lately.  I've come to appreciate spending time with good friends in a more intimate, conversational type setting versus a loud, overwhelming, wild and crazy type setting.  That's just me and I don't apologize for it...well maybe just a little.

About a year ago I came across a great idea for a party.  A "Favorite Things" party!  The whole theme was based on a song from one of my favorite movies...The Sound of Music.  It had invites that looked like brown paper packages tied up with string and I felt an intense need to make invites and have this party.  That festered for a year.  I couldn't find the perfect date...I couldn't decide who to invite or more to the point "how" to invite as many as I could fit in my teeny tiny house without leaving anyone feeling left out.  But after a year of excuses, I finally wrote "party" in a square on my calendar.  I made adorable little paper package invites and gave them to some of my friends.  I figured I could fit about eight, so I invited sixteen thinking about half would come.  That was it...I was committed.  Long story short...I am so glad I did it!  It was so much fun!

My caramel frosted brownies!

 The idea of the party is that you think of something that is a favorite thing of yours. It has to cost less than $6.00 and then you bring 5 of that favorite thing.  When all the guests are there, they all write their name on 5 slips of paper and put them in a bow.  Then everyone draws out five names.

Becky, Formia, Angela, Amy, Missy, Kathryn, Shirlene, Sharma and Jana

 Then one guest at a time gets up and tells about her favorite thing and when she's done, the  five ladies who drew her name get to take home one of her favorite things.  Okay..so just writing that sounds confusing but it's really not and it's so much fun to see all the different "favorite things" and then get to take five of them home.

Amy's favorite: Euro coin holders from the Brit Cafe

Peggy, Sarah, Linda, Leslie and Yvette

Shirlene's favorite: Bounty bars

Sharma's favorite: flea market teacups

Everyone brought a favorite appetizer or dessert

  I did miscalculate...the "eight" ended up being fourteen but we just squished together and it was perfect.   I just wish I could've invited everyone I wanted to or had a house big enough to do that...maybe next year.

Herrenstein

  We also went back up to the village we went to a few weeks ago where we had dinner in the old tithing barn and Hans cooked up our Schweinsteaks right over the fire upstairs.

    We met McGraths and Vida's there and enjoyed another yummy dinner. 

 This time we went with our friends Jerry and Barbara Youngblood.  They will be leaving Germany in about a month so this was just a fun "almost" farewell dinner.  They arrived in Germany just a few weeks before us and Jerry worked with Mike at the AOC.  He was also a returning retiree.  He took us to get our drivers licenses the day after we got here, so he's one of the first people we met.  We will really, really miss them!!

 We had a nice walk through the village and up to the church on the hill before dinner.  What a view!

And lastly...the Weather and Ag report:  Weather has been so springlike.  Forties, fifies and partly sunny.  My neighbor, August, has set out his primroses and Easter decorations.  He says there won't be another hard freeze.  Some days are overcast a little drizzly, but when the sun comes out...it's heaven!   

I even decided it's time to get out the bike and get to working my way up to fifteen miles again.  The first time out...I made it less than one!  BUT...that's because the tire was leaking and so I didn't get too far before I had to turn around and head home.  It did light the fire though!

I know my stateside friends and family have turned the clocks ahead but we don't do that until the 25th.  I'm anxious for the longer daylight in the evening time.  

Love and miss you all,
-corri