Freeman Party

There are a number of people that I must thank for making the party as successful as it was. Thank you Borky for helping with party set up, taking charge of the music and sharing his musical knowledge around the fire pit. Thank you to my sister in law, Jody, for taking me to Sam’s Club to purchase the food and even more importantly for reminding me to be nice and not yell while organizing games. I have to be honest, by remaining calm during the games actually kept my own stress level much lower than it would have been if I had been yelling throughout the games. Thank you to Justus, for all of your help with the cooking.Thank you to my sister, Deb, sister in law, Julie, aunt Sandy, my mom, and anyone else that helped with getting the food out and ready for dinner. Preston, thank you for the use of the picnic table. Mom and Dad, thank you for the use of the trash cans and birthday present. Finally, I would like to thank everyone that attended and brought food to share. I was told during one of the first parties I threw at my house, a party that I thought was a miserable failure, that you do the best you can setting everything up, but ultimately if is up to the guests to have fun and make it a success. And that most certainly was true this past weekend. If there is anyone I missed with my thank yous, I apologize.
I personally believe this was the best Freeman party yet. For the most part there was good sportsmanship with all of the games. All of the food was delicious. The following morning, there were only a handful of dead soldiers to be poured out and basically no garbage that needed to be picked up.
For me, here were the highlights of this year’s games. The finals of the 2x4 walk could not have been much closer. I saw the video that Eric shot and it is fantastic. Once I get a copy of it, I will post it. Nearly every year during the water balloon toss, one person always gets soaked. This year, Angela (Butter Muffins) took home that title. Unfortunately there isn’t a trophy for that. Moving on to the musical chairs, Joey making it so far in the kids division, was fun to watch. After several unphysical and non competitive rounds, in the women’s finals, Julie tried to rip the chair out from under my sister , Deb. A move that I found to be very unexpected. In the first round of the men’s musical chairs, MKA was able to knock Tim off a chair and onto the ground from 2 people away. On a side note MKA, your protest of the final outcome of the musical chairs is still being reviewed by the panel of judges and we hope to get an answer back to you real soon.
The only disappointment to be noted was the performance of the juggler after dinner. He was visibly nervous, had far too many drops and I expected much better show.
But with every year, improvements can be made. I was a big fan of the 2x4 walk, but next year there will only be one open division for all ages and rather than having me randomly select teams, you will be allowed to pick your partner. I am also planning on making that a double elimination. I am also contemplating switching the meal from brats and burgers to a pig roast. It has been a long time since my family has put a pig on a spit. Plus, I know a number of butchers would be more than willing to showcase their talents. In fact, maybe I could turn that into a game, who can bone out a hind quarter the fastest. The early odds have Haus as the front runner with my dad as a very close second. I have also already drawn up plans for a chandelier that will be placed over the picnic table for cards. Someone threw out the idea of duct taping The General to a chair when he acted up. There is a high probability of that occurring next year right before I hand out all of the extra water balloons to the kids after the water balloon toss. If you have any other ideas on how to make the party better, I would be happy to hear any recommendations you may have.
Moving on to the lost and found section, here are the items that got left behind. Please let me know if anything is yours and I will make sure that they get back to you. I also have two blue lawn chairs and what I think is Julie's black blanket keeper thing.
On to the rest of the pictures.
Abby and Ethan.
BoomerEthan celebrating his victory in the water balloon toss.Chris.Deb.Amanda. Angela, this is the toss that soaked her. Looks like I was about a half a second too fast on snapping the picture.Amanda.The first round of the Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament.Kids musical chairs.Chris going down early in the musical chairs.