It's official... we no longer have a little baby girl. At least we will no longer have a baby girl in 3 days. But according to the party we had last week we no longer have a baby girl. And seriously, who could have possibly planned a more adventuresome, action-packed party then us? For those of you who didn't attend, and for those who did, here's a recap of how things turned out.
For starters, the party began its planning phase a few months back when Morgan and I went on a scouting mission looking for the perfect location. We decided on a pavilion at Centennial Park since it's a nice park and the pavilion we selected was right next to the giant playground. Plus we thought if anyone got bored (like that would happen) they could venture off hiking or do some paddle boating. With the location out of the way we started planning the day. We had quite the itinerary planned... I even had a spreadsheet. I also baked a test cake (cake #1) to make sure Morgan approved (she did). The morning of the party Morgan and I were going to wake up and head into Baltimore to participate in the March of Dimes walk. We would come home, Morgan would nap, and I would pack everything up to head to the park. Morgan would wake up refreshed and ready to party and away we would go. Yes, it truly was the perfect plan... on paper.
What actually happened: I spent all day on Saturday preparing all of the food, packing up decorations, and putting the finishing touchings on a few crafty items I had made. The last thing I did for the day was about 8pm when I prepared an absolute masterpiece of a birthday cake (cake #2). This was truly a work of art. Not having a cake stand I carefully arranged the cake on 2 paper plates, sat it on the stove, and covered it with a deep metal bowl so as not to mess up the frosting. I called it a night and we all went to bed.
The next morning, the day of the party, started out exactly as planned. I woke up early, got dressed, and went downstairs to prepare Morgan some oatmeal for our big walk. Well anyone who has made oatmeal knows that you really need hot water so naturally I grabbed the tea pot, filled it with water, and put it on the stove to heat up. Also one to multi-task I then went outside to grab my walking shoes and the mail. As I was outside I started hearing a beeping noise. Naturally I assumed it was coming from the neighbor's house and didn't think much of it. Unfortunately the neighbor wasn't doing anything about turning off the beeping and it continued until it finally dawned on me that it's coming from our house and it's actually the smoke alarm. So in the house I go, up the stairs, and into an extremely smoke-filled kitchen when I come to discover that the burner I turned on to heat the water for Morgan's oatmeal was directly next to the burner I which I had so delicately placed Morgan's birthday cake (on paper plates) the night before. Pat was awake and apparently had already put out all flames (yes, we did have actual flames). We went up to make sure Morgan was ok only to find out that she had managed to sleep through the alarm and all commotion we were making. So we had to wake her up and spend the next half hour huddled up in the basement - the only place in the house not currently engulfed in smoke and carbon monoxide poisoning. Needless to say we did not go on our walk.
After it was safe to venture upstairs again we managed to get our first look at the destruction to the kitchen. Our front right burner is completely destroyed but more importantly than that, so was the cake. Although I must admit, aside from being a tad chargrilled it was still pretty darn tasty and possibly salvageable until Patrick pointed out that it's also full of chemicals from the fire, melted paper plates, and destroyed metal bowl that was covering it. Of course, said metal bowl also served to trap the flames coming from the cake and funneled them through the stove. So I did what any other logical person would do in this situation - waited until Morgan and Pat were napping, rushed out to the grocery store to pick up a couple ingredients, and promptly made the cake all over again (cake #3). Luckily I managed to recreate the cooking conditions almost exactly from the night before (minus the time change) and am happy to say cake #3 turned out just as good, if not better, as cake #2.
Ok, so that covers the fire (Pat is right, it is laughable now), the carbon monoxide poisoning, and 3 birthday cakes. But of course there is more to this day than just that. I failed to mention that for the past week we have apparently been having end of the world type weather where it has rained, strike that... poured every single day. The entire week I had been carefully monitoring the weather report and every day the weather for Sunday was supposed to be clear and in the mid 60s - perfect weather for a day at the park. Until we get to about Friday where all of a sudden the forecast has completely changed to Sunday being all showers and now in the low 60s. We all know we can handle cold weather outside but unfortunately rain is a different story. So come Sunday morning, in between setting off the smoke alarm and nearly burning down the house, I did happen to notice that it was raining and rather hard rain at that. Luckily we had a backup plan and my sister immediately put her family on DEFCON 1 alert as they scrambled to get their house ready. We notified the guests and all was saved.
Let's see, I'm forgetting something. Oh right - Morgan's little girl friend who was scheduled to attend unfortunately developed a rather unexpected case of pneumonia a few days before the party and sadly was forced to stay home (probably for the best considering the day's events up to this point). Luckily she's doing much better and hoping to schedule a make-up play date soon.
So fire, 3 cakes, end of the world rain, venue change, and pneumonia. Yup, we sure know how to handle a party. Fortunately Morgan didn't really seem to care too much that plans were changed and had a wonderful 1st birthday party. She also made a killing in presents and enjoyed some pretty darn good cake - of course you would hope so considering it was the 3rd time I made the same cake. Thanks to all who came out to celebrate and you can rest assured that I am adding a super double emergency plan tab to my planning spreadsheet for next year's party just in case we have an earthquake, hurricane, or tsunami.
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