Dressing Up for a party

Whenever we have a party, the children love to make sure it’s a dress-up party. By this we mean a costume party, not formal wear. So the party to celebrate our 1st anniversary in the US and Ariel’s 13th birthday (13! Already!) was a dress-up party. The weather was great, the children all ran around, played in the sand pit, used the swings, rushed down the flying fox, jumped on the trampoline, or played games in the school room whilst the adults got a chance to chat away. The children occasionally came in with red faces, exhausted. Lana’s mum wiped down their faces with a cold towel, gave them a drink and out they went again!


Ariel as Kirsten from the “American Girl” book series.

By evening we had the traditional bonfire, but with a traditional US feature – Smores. A Smore (as in “I want some more” said with a mouth full) is made as follows:

1. Get a Graham cracker (sweet cookie/biscuit) in one hand.
2. Place a piece of chocolate on it (traditionally Hershey’s Milk Chocolate) It needs to be thin so that it can melt.
3. Put a marshmallow on a stick and melt it “just so” in the fire
4. Then squash the melted marshmallow against the chocolate with another Graham cracker.

The marshmallow melts the chocolate, and oozes out the edges.
David Floyd taught us this when we went camping with his parents at Cooper’s creek, a beautiful shady spot next to a creek nearby. Apparently it originated in the Boy Scouts.

By late evening everyone went home happy but exhausted. We’re sure the children had a good sleep that night!