Parties

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Alex and I often debate about the role of the menu at a party.  There are clearly parties where the food is the main star, and others where it serves as more of a supporting actor.  Even if it’s more of a supporting actor, I still try to really focus on food that fits the …

Sandwich Bar After Caroline’s Love 15 birthday party, I didn’t intend to host another large teenager driven fall party this year.  Then the Color Guard asked for volunteers to help with the Color Guard only parties, and I figured this was the volunteer activity that was right up my alley.  We already decorate for fall, …

If you’re friends with us or even tacitly know us, you’ve probably heard Alex wrote a book! (Here’s a link just in case.)  We decided to celebrate its release and thank those of us who have supported his effort by throwing a small cocktail party.   There wasn’t much or really anything to do in …

Have Black Plastic Will Party: Part 1 Before I dive into the miracle that is black plastic sheeting, I want to note that my inability to blog this party was not because I didn’t think it was a marvelous party.  In fact, I would say Pandemonium at the Disco definitely falls in the top 3.  …

Last night we were “chilling” on the couch (maybe not “chilling” as Alex had a glass of RED wine on my almost white couch) discussing our next few months of upcoming events, and it turns out between Caroline and us we have 4 in the next 5ish months.  As a result of this pleasant conversion …

Caroline’s Fifteenth Birthday Party Author’s note: I’m writing this trapped in our bedroom watching a movie I owe Alex in return for his watching Crossing Delancey while teenagers control the rest of our entire house (backyard, kitchen, living room, dining room, and the entire upstairs). I’m also terrified that teens, barbecue and my new white …

Its amazing what you can do with a basic wood frame, king size sheet, and acrylic paint. Here’s a quick look our photo back drops from past parties.

A super casual dinner party Growing up, our house wouldn’t fall into today’s standard of “clean eating,” but it definitely fit into the 80’s version of healthy.  With the Texas recommended exception of Blue Bell ice cream we didn’t have a lot of sugar.  Honey Nut Cheerios and Cinnamon Life were real treats compared to …

Recreating a space that could be featured on American Pickers or Hoarders The Gay Parita Sinclair Gas Station in Ash Grove, Missouri is representative of so many places along the Mother Road.  It started as a gas station, and expanded to a mechanic shop, and eventually contained cabins to meet the needs of the travelers …

Once we finished all 2448 miles (and then some) of our party research, retired and replaced the vanlet, and hosted one last dinner party in a “clean house” we were set to start really planning and decorating.  To say this is when we started planning would be inaccurate. We’d been working on important background concepts …

Travels with Caroline and Party Research The End The third day of our trip was pretty low key.  I ended up needing to work, so I stayed in the hotel while Alex and Caroline went to explore Gallop, New Mexico.  I’m going to hand the Gallup section off to them. First, I’ll give you a …

Alex and Caroline go to Gallup I was not a fan of Gallup, New Mexico. When Caroline and I went out to get some pictures, we first cruised Route 66 through town to see what might be worth shooting. The answer: Not much. There were a lot of cool signs along the route, but they …

Travels with Caroline and Party Research Part 7 We began the second day of our final trek across Route 66 in the California high desert.  As we hit the outskirts of Victorville the city and neighborhoods with streets of packed houses gave way to  a desert landscape broken up by small houses surrounded by cars …

Travels with Caroline and Party Research Part 6 We decided to tackle the last half of Route 66 in one trip.  As with the other sections we had to contend with the logistics of how to get to a starting point and either work our way to the end or home.  Like the Chicago to …

Travels with Caroline and Party Research Part 5 The next few stops on our list were all in the small town of Cuba, Missouri.  With a population well below 4,000 people, the residents of Cuba have worked hard to make it a must stop destination for travelers looking to get their kicks on 66.   …

Travels with Caroline and Party Research Part 4 The second day of our journey from Chicago to Joplin, Missouri started with a great spelling debate.  Really, how do you spell “ketchup”? We spell it with K-e-t-c-h-u-p, and so far our friends, Heinz, Hunts and Wikipedia all agree with us.  However, Brooks and the good folks …

Travels with Caroline and Party Research Part 3 When we first decided to take our party research on the road, we really figured we’d cover what we could of Route 66 over a few days at spring break and that would be it.  As soon as we got home from our Joplin to New Mexico …

Travels with Caroline and Party Research Part 2 The second day of our adventure started when we packed up our bags in Oklahoma City, ate the hotel’s “concierge breakfast” which pre-pandemic would have a had a host of options to what now looked and tasted like a Jenny Craig egg scramble complete with the microwaveable …

While we think that decorations, food, music and engaging activity are important to the success of a party, we find that there’s usually one or two of these components that really take center stage.  Decorations were definitely the main focus at Death and Vodka, but we wanted to make sure that the food was time-period …

Travels with Caroline and Party Research Part I Once we come up with a party topic, we usually do a bit of research to help us figure out food, decorations, and the game.  For our Hollywood through the ages party, we researched popular food through the decades, watched a lot of movies, and paused Big …

In our modern world there are so many awesome and easy ways to invite people to a shindig.  For most of the entertaining we do we simply text, email, or send out evites, but for our annual theme party we like to try to set the stage for the event and give our guests a …

The Roaring 20’s Along with what seems like 90% of America and apparently the UK we knew that our 2020 party was going to be a 1920s party.  The real question was what kind of 1920s party and how could we make sure it didn’t look like every other 20’s party on the internet.  The …

The Official Funeral Home of Cesarzville We created Majewski & Sons using our dining room and front entry hall.  We wanted to accomplish a few things in this space.  First, we wanted to create more than just the somber look and feel that people expect to see when they attend a viewing we wanted to …

The “Official” Speakeasy of Cesarzville We utilized our open floor plan living room, kitchen and breakfast room to create the Mockingbird Lounge.  We wanted it to feel like it was an unfinished or reclaimed building that included some minor touches to make it seem like “someone” was trying to add a little class to the …

Most people think of Valentine’s when they think of February 14th. Here at “The Cesarz Palace”, it also happens to be Shannon’s half birthday! Let’s pull out the cake and balloons and really have a party! Granted, it doesn’t take much for us to decide to throw a party, but celebrating a “making it halfway …