Hosting a Mystery Dinner

For Halloween, I hosted a Mystery Dinner for our homeschool teen group. It turned out to be a blast. I really wanted to do this event because I have great memories of one my mom helped me host in high school. A few people asked me for details, so, as promised, here is how I did it.

If you don't know what a mystery dinner is, it is a dinner where the menu is in code. You must order your meal, including your silverware, napkins, and sometimes drinks, in advance. Each course is cleared away before the next one is served. You may get ice cream and a toothpick for your first course!

I did some online searching and didn't come up with much, but I did find some things to inspire and help me. I decided to do a four course meal, so wrote up a menu of each course, with the perfect ordering combinations. Such as, course one should have you getting your eating utensils and napkin, course 2 would be salad and breadsticks, course three your main dish, nad course four dessert. I planned for more than one option to choose from so there was the potential of not getting any utensils, or having salad, appetizers and desert, but no main dish. There were two main dishes, several appetizers and two deserts. Originally, I wanted to have them order their water, too, but I couldn't come up with a good name for water. Also, my husband pointed out that if someone failed to order that item, they'd go the whole meal without a drink. So, I chose to have water on the tables. Next to each item on my menu, I came up with a name. Since, it was a halloween theme, the names reflected that. Fork was magic broom, breadsticks were skeleton bones and mexican lasagna was monster mash. Then I randomly wrote a number next to each item; I think I had 17 or 18 things. Now the fun part - designing the menu. I used Publisher to make a very cool menu. You can see the inside of it at the top of this post. The day of the party, I made a cheat sheet for the servers listing the items in numerical order, along with what they were. I think we had 1 server for every 4 kids and that seemed to work out well. I arranged the food in numerical order along the counters in my kitchen. A server would pick up a menu, locate the items listed for course 1, and deliver the plate to it's owner. The menu would go into a pile to be used again for course 2 and so on.

It was so much fun seeing what combinations people chose and watching their reactions. A few people actually did very well and some, well, they were good sports! When dinner was complete, I opened up the kitchen for those who didn't get enough to eat. I had such a great time planning and hosting this event and the kids had a ball. I got emails that night and facebook posts thanking me and telling me how much fun they had - that was cool!

If you are hosting a mystery dinner, and this helped you, I'd love to hear how it went.

A Special Concert

Tonight my family and I attended a very special concert. It was put on by Jeni's music therapist, Sarah Quinney, and her mother, Amy Quinney. Amy teaches piano and had several of her student's perform. Sarah is a music therapist and several of her clients performed on the piano, guitar, and vocals. It was so cool to see these kids and young adults given the spotlight and being supported by everyone there. People with special needs are so often pushed aside, ignored, and often treated with disrepect. Seldom do others take the time to get to know them, to look past the obvious and to see their uniqueness, their own personality, talents and intellect. Tonight was about celebrating what each one is able to do and to applaud that very best effort. There were no prizes, no competition. No one thought, "my kid did so much better than yours", no one worried, "my child didn't do as well as her." It was an uplifting and encouraging evening. At the end of the concert, Sarah sang, with the voice of an angel, "God Help the Outcast". There weren't many dry eyes, for it struck a chord with most of us there. I for one am so thankful for the things I've learned at the hand of a child with special needs. I'd give anything to keep her from having to fight the battles ahead, but at the same time, I wouldn't change a thing about her - she's perfect.

Jeni singing I'll Fly Away tonight. Sarah singing God Help the Outcast. Hope you can take the time to listen.

A New Beginning

Well, I see it has been almost 2 years since my last post. Guess I'll jump on the blogging bandwagon, again. I had to laugh at my post entitled A New Project; I'm still trying to lose that weight. In 22 months, I've lost 7 pounds. I'll keep at it and see if I can't kick it up a bit in this somewhat public forum!
I'm working on a new quilt project for a special friend - love to have someone in mind while I'm being creative. Today I bought a pattern and fabric to make a "little black dress." Been looking for one for quite some time with no luck, so decided to make one. The last dress I started still needs a hem in it and I won't tell you how long it's needed that.
That's all for now.

A New "Project"

Mom and I are teaming up to lose weight and get in shape. We started today and will be keeping a food journal. I'm trying to go to bed by 10:30 (usual is 12:30) and not snack in the evening. So today I walked for 30 minutes and didn't do too badly on the snacks - a pear and 2 pieces of baklava. I've got to drink more water, though. Maybe we'll keep each other on track. I'm also wanting to get back on the Flylady wagon. It works, so why do I quit? I'm also scaling back Jeni's therapy appointments starting in January and just the though of it is making me in a better mood already ( =

Dad's report

He doesn't have cancer! This is great news and quite unexpected. Why did the biopsy and PET scan show cancer and not the pathology? Now he has gone through a 5 hour surgery, is minus some salivary glands and lymph nodes when it would appear unnecessary?! The doctor is looking into these questions but we will focus on the words NO Cancer. YEAH!

Friday Turkey Day

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving with Dad, Mom, Steve, Armeda and Nathalie Dooley. Great family, friends, food and fun. It was good to be together and have Dad feeling well. It's hard to see him with the bandage on his neck and the right side of his face so unmoving. It's not really the incision that bothers me - it's the other things that make him look like something is wrong. He's never been sick, before. I can count on one hand the times I remember him having just a cold or something. I think this will be a long week, waiting for the pathology report to come back. But, God will provide what we need for the future.