Mongolian BBQ- Our last party of the summer

Saturday the 24th was our last party of the summer.  The party was for our church congregation.  We were "just" responsible for hosting.  Others were responsible for the food.  The week leading up to the event was not the most relaxing we've ever had.

The Saturday before the party, the person in charge of the meal showed up to get an idea of where he wanted to put everything.  While he was here, he asked us if there was anything we needed help with.  I joked that unless he had a tractor to help us move a dump truck full of drain rock for our septic drain field, we didn't need anything.  He knew someone at church who had a tractor that he could loan out.  He called about the tractor and we were told that someone else was borrowing it but when he was done with it, we could have it next.  We've been moving the rocks a shovel full at a time so having a tractor would be a huge improvement.

Sunday while Dode was showering, I noticed that water was percolating up in the lawn around the septic tank access cover.  We realized that our septic pump had failed and all our sewage was poring out onto our lawn.  The place they planned to have the food for the party was directly over the septic tank.   Even  if we moved the food area, we had to get the septic pump fixed, and quick!  What would we do? We were sure that calling someone out to replace the pump would be over $1,000.  As Dode lay in bed worrying about the problem and contemplating letting people know we'd have to cancel the party, he brainstormed what he could do.  He figured out a way to get the broken pump out himself.  He found a replacement pump on amazon.com and we paid for overnight shipping, hoping it would be here on Tuesday when we'd also receive the tractor.

He took the day off from work on Tuesday and worked on our septic system.  He started off by moving rocks over to our drain field.

Once the rocks were gone, he ordered a bunch of topsoil to be delivered.  While he was waiting for the topsoil, he was able to replace the broken pump with the new one that had just been delivered that morning by UPS.  By 6:30 pm, the new pump was working and our drain field improvements were finished.  We're hoping the improvements will allow the drain field area to dry out.  It's been pretty soggy for years.  In fact, Dode has been working on the drain field for the seven years we've lived here.  I just think he would have preferred to not be working on it on an emergency basis less than a week before a party!

He started by laying down a piece of filter fabric It's the kind of thing that goes under roads.  He hadn't purchased quite enough so he used the bouncing surface of our old trampoline for just a little bit more.  Other parts of our old trampoline has been put to more fun uses, the slip and slide and as support bases for our fourth of July float.  He put another piece of filter fabric over the rocks, then added the topsoil on top of the top layer of fabric.

Dode and Isaac standing with the old sewage pump (by Dode) and the new pump (by Isaac).

Isaac looks like he's really enjoying himself!  The amazon box is still laying in the yard.  It looks like he really tore into it to get the pump out.  

With our septic woes behind us, it should be smooth sailing to the party, right?  Wrong!  Wednesday we lost the transmission on our riding lawn mower.  It would have been a much bigger problem if we weren't at 35 days without rain.  Our lawn has gone mostly dormant so we were able to skip mowing before the party.  Loosing the transmission on Wednesday made me even more thankful that we'd been able to use the tractor.  We'd been dumping rocks into our lawn mower trailer and using the lawn mower to move the trailer between the rock pile and the drain field.  It would have been a big setback to loose the lawn mower in the middle of all that work.  So, although it wasn't a crisis to loose the transmission, it was a big disappointment.  When we'd just bled out a lot of money for the septic and drain field repairs, we didn't have the money to buy another lawn mower.  Even old warn out lawnmowers were out of our buget after the septic crisis.  Dode tore into the transmission, wondering if it'd be a waste of his time.  He found a couple of worn out bearings allowing the gears to slip and ordered new parts.  He THINKS he can repair it for the tune of $18.

The Saturday of the party began at 4:45 am when the produce driver called to say he was at the end of the driveway.  It was fully dark without even a moon to light the night as we moved produce from the pallets to our trailer.  It would have been nice to spend our Saturday working on the yard but we both ended up pulled in different directions throughout the day.  I had produce to do.  Dode had to help someone unload a trailer full of things.  Then I had to go to a baptism and Dode had to take a trailer full of our junk to the dump (we missed garbage pick up last week and had a bunch of odds and ends to get rid of before the party).  It was after 1:00 pm by the time we could turn our attention to the lawn and the party started at 4:00.

One thing we've learned when getting ready for a party is that no part of our home or lawn is off limits to children, teenagers, and the parents who are looking for them.  Upstairs, downstairs, in the garage, up in the office, out behind the garage, all around the boat, to the far reaches of the tall grass all around our house, we've found people everywhere.  When you lead a busy life, live on almost two acres in a forty year old house with a garage the size of a barn, how do you prepare for a party?  You just do the best you can and realize, it's real life that we're showing off!

One stress I'd had all week was our port-a-potty.  We'd rented it for five weeks.  We had a party right in the beginning, a couple in the middle, and then one at four weeks.  We'd had some really hot weather during that time and the port-a-potty had never been serviced.  I called on Monday and left a message saying it needed servicing because we were having a party on Saturday.  I never got a call back.  I called again on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, leaving messages each time and never hearing back from them.  I was irritated because when we'd rented it, they told us they'd be providing weekly service.  Well, in the middle of co-op chaos, the servicing truck pulled up to clean the port-a-potty.  I was quite relieved.  I don't know if the people picking up their produce right behind the port-a-potty were as thrilled.  When they pump it out, it really smells!

Our party started at 4:00 pm and it wasn't long after that that people starting arriving.  I loved seeing the excitement on the faces of children as they were let loose on our lawn.  Huge smiles, running fast ahead with a look of, "Yes!"  Soon the swimming pool, slip and slide, zip line and spinny thing were loaded up with children.

How many children can you fit in our pool?  There's another on the ladder waiting to get in.

Ready to go down the zip line.  Notice how warm the little girl in the back of the line looks!

It makes my heart happy to see a teenager on the spinny thing.

Off she goes down the zip line.  I love the tummy sticking out.

Splash down on the water slide.

Weeee!

Creating a laundry basket fortress.

cage ball soccer

Thanks Jacob for the graffiti in the background.  Real life, remember?

Trampolining.  At least we had one thing Nathan (with the cast) could do!

We brought out the little pools and slide for the little people.

The line up in the tree waiting for the big zip line.

Miriam and June enjoying snow cones in the tree house.

Teenagers playing tether ball.

Our refurbished drain field is in the middle of the lawn between the area where the children were playing and the area where the parents were sitting and eating.

Doesn't everyone have part of a football field to lay in their dirt patch?

We didn't want dirt tracked everywhere so we laid our piece of AstroTurf football field down across the middle of the dirt to act as a walk way.  I got a lot of questions about what it was that we had in our lawn!  I explained that we'd filled in a low spot in the lawn but were waiting for fall to plant grass.

We had a great turn out at the party.  Well over 100 people.  They ranged in ages from small babies to a few people in their 80's.  The next day at church, I looked around the chapel and I only counted five families who were in church that day who hadn't made it to our party.  (We also had five families who came to the party but didn't make it to church).  That's a pretty good attendance! One family drove all night Friday night to get home from California and still made it to the party.  I heard another mom say her daughter has been waiting for a year to get back over to our house and go down our zip line.

The food area.  The line extended all down the side of the car port.

Different people brought the fixings for the meal.  You got to customize your meal, choosing just what you wanted them to stir fry for you.

A view of the grills they used for the food.

Elise is ready to have her meal cooked.  See the guy in the green T-shirt?  That patch of dirt in front of him is the septic tank access.

We brought out the popcorn popper and snow cone machine for treats at the party.  We went through 9 bags of ice.  That's a LOT of snow cones!  It was fun to see so many children running around with snow cone syrup dripped down their tummies.  I make my own syrup by using kool-aid packets and sugar to make a thick syrup.  By the time the party was over, almost all of the four different flavors I made were empty.  The ironic thing is that so many kids were having such a good time playing that several went home with empty tummies, they were too busy to eat.

The party was a success.  I don't think anyone at the party got hurt, although one family was in a car accident on the way to the way to the party and didn't make it.

Sometime between 8:00-8:30 pm, the party was over and we began cleaning up.  We finally put away the folding chairs that have been sitting under the carport for five weeks.  Hooray for that!  By 9:30, the yard was clean, the house was straightened up (It was an outside party but remember what I said about people everywhere?) and I could finally turn my attention to making the sacrament bread for Sunday's service.

It's our 2nd year holding the Mongolian Grill and our third year having a party for our congregation.  I hope it will be an annual tradition.  It's a lot of work to get ready for a party but we love to host things here.  We've been blessed with such a great place to live, we love to share it with others.  Dode and I are both already scheming what we'll add to the party next year.  Soft serve ice cream for him, a dunk tank for me.  We'll see if our dreams come to fruition.

A pile of tubes blown up and ready for playing.  Want to join us next year?