Friends, Food and a Great Movie!
June 23, 2007
What an awesome way to celebrate Bookworm's 12th birthday!!
Last night we hosted our homeschool group's Activity Night! Bookworm was very excited to host the group on his birthday night - he could think of no better way to celebrate than to hang out with his friends. :)
Activity Night is a monthly gathering of tweens (ages 10-14) at one family's home. The host family orders a pizza supper and everyone brings favorite snacks to share. (This being a bunch of tweens, the snacks range from Doritos, to Pringles to Oreos, lol.) After the kids eat, they sit down to watch a movie together, though sometimes the chosen activity is a game night or trading cards. Each family gets to choose their activity, and we decided to show the movie National Treasure, which is one of Bookworm's favorites. Have you seen it? It's a great family-friendly historical-action-suspense movie. Many, many thumbs up. :)
We spent the afternoon preparing the environment. Here are a few before pictures:
The concession stand.
The viewing room.
The mums' corner - just one room over, but still close enough. ;)
A fresh batch of chocolate cupcakes to celebrate BW's birthday.
Just about six o'clock, the gang started arriving. Bill and Earlybird left to have dinner out and spend the evening at Nana and Papa's house, but Crackerjack got to stay with the "big kids." He was so excited to be included!
Sorry this photo is blurry, but I had to show you our packed house! We had 14 kids in all, and several mums stayed to chat and visit. Above you see the group enjoying their supper as the movie started. Activity Night generally runs between 6 and 9 p.m. and as National Treasure is a long movie, I started it while they were eating. After the pizza, sodas and snacks followed, as well as plenty of cookies and cupcakes. We mums enjoyed tea, coffee and lots of conversation.
After the movie the kids gathered around my laptop to watch the trailer for the National Treasure sequel, Book of Secrets, opening this December. We're already planning a field trip, with perhaps a Book Group tie-in that month.
And here we have the aftermath! Contrary to what this picture might suggest, we have TONS of food leftover!
It was such a great time, and I was once again reminded of how blessed we are to be part of such an awesome group of people. And now I'm off to make an ice cream cake for Bookworm's family party later today (pictures to come later!). Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!