SURPRISE! A Manly 30th Birthday Beer Tasting!

Let me tell you a little tale of debauchery, of drunkenness so fun that it can be called nothing but EPIC. That my friends was the Original DJS (named for Dave, Jon, & Steve) party thrown in 2002. I didn't attend as Dave and I were just friends at that point and though I WAS indeed invited to said gathering, going to a party at "my friend's cottage somewhere in Michigan" with Dave seemed a little weird and probably would have really pissed off the person I was dating at the time. They were banned from Jon's (parents') cottage for FIVE years. I kid you not.

So this year, the three wives planned a little surprise party for the boys turning 30. The DJS Old Man Style. It was a party for men, not boys. It was filled with BEER, inspired by Jon's website The Daily Hops. It was also epic and yet, we didn't have to sleep in tents, drink bad beer (well there WAS Natty Light), or partake in any blackouts from Harry Buffalo. It was a little more refined and a lot less crazy. And so... I give you the DJS, Old Man Style.

The INVITE! We originally had planned on sending empty beer bottles with a custom label as an invitation, however due to the super secret nature of the planning and the large number of invitees we had to do something a little less obvious! I had these printed up at vistaprint and along with some custom envelopes and fun addressing we sent them all out undetected!

Another GREAT idea was to set up a custom email address so that we could keep track of RSVPs. We also set up the gmail address to be on vacation setting and sent an auto reply to each person that rsvp'd saying this:

Thanks so much for your RSVP! Don't forget this is a SURPRISE for Dave, Jon, and Steve so keep it quiet!

If you're coming...
AWESOME! There is all sorts of manly food and craziness in
store. And maybe some poker, but not strip poker because you know, moms n' stuff will be there and dude, no one wants to see their mom playing strip poker. (Hi Mom!) The dress is casual, but the hotter you look the better chance you'll have of scoring at the end of the night. And dancing, well the chicks will be dancing and Dave will be dancing and probably breaking an ankle. And BEER. Don't forget the beer. And speaking of forgetting beer... don't forget to have yours ready to drink for the tasting. That means cold, if it needs to be cold or room temp, if it needs to be room temp. There will be ample space to keep it chilled once you get to the party, but it's up to you to get it drinkable before that. And the prizes are good, so bring your A game people. It's going to be an absolute blast and very manly. But not so manly that things won't match, I mean really who wants to go to a non-matching, stupid, "real" man party with no awesome prizes and fun drunk girls anyway?

If you're not coming...
See above awesomeness and cancel whatever lame-o plans you might have had.
Sincerely,The Best Wives in the Universe... no... sincerely, we
totally are.

We printed out fun vintage beer ads and put them in 4x6 cheapie frames and had them on tables along with piles of cards and games for people to play. By the end of the evening we even broke out a game (or 20) of Twister!

The arrival! SURPRISE!!!

So, when everyone arrived (prior to the arrival of the boys) our fabulous bartenders (my sister, BIL, and friend) took their 6 pack, put it in the commercial cooler we borrowed, asked them to sign in on the list which beer they brought, and handed them their tasting glass with ballot.

Then the tasting began! We set up a galvanized container filled with ice to keep on the bar so that people could see what was already opened and help themselves if they so chose. More often than not, people asked for (and got!) recommendations from the bartenders. They could also ask to have anything opened in the cooler if it wasn't out already.

We also created a how-to menu for mixing your own beer cocktails! This was a really fun addition and since people had their small tasting glasses, they were a lot more adventurous about trying different things!

To keep the tallying EASY we had a best and a worst category. We didn't tell anyone about the worst category until after they arrived because let's face it, we could have ended up with 80 6 packs of REALLY bad beer! We wanted people to go for unique different beers so there would be a wide range to taste.

This is a pic of Karen and I tallying up the votes mid-way through the evening. We had prizes for the top two beers, the bottom two beers, AND a prize for Dave's Favorite, Jon's Favorite (which incidentally was the same as the top winner!), and Steve's Favorite

The winners of the favorites got a 4 pack of custom home brew that we also gave to the boys as gifts. A wonderful friend of ours created an insane chocolate coffee stout and I made some fun labels. There are pics below. The top prize got a basket with Tastefully Simple Beer Bread, freezable mugs, a book on beer, and a bottle of beer. The second prize got a great Beer Marinade from Williams-Sonoma. The worst prize was a Beer For Dummies book and Budweiser marinade. The second worst prize won a hideous 'beer' citronella candle.



We had lots and lots of 'man food' for the party. Wings, mini meatball subs, pulled pork sliders, every dip and chip known to man, fresh from the garden salsa, etc...

The desserts! It wouldn't be a party without an incredible dessert display! Karen drew this for the cake and we had the artwork printed on edible frosting from a local bakery!

We had mini Guiness cupcakes, Kahlua pudding shots, cookies of all kinds, haystacks, chocolate dipped Oreo pops, and chocolate covered strawberries, in addition to birthday cake!

I made a bunch of cute cupcake picks with different sayings on them and fun retro clip art.

I absolutely LOVED the fact that the paintings on the wall (artists Mr Atomic & Ann Kniep) were fun and played well with the manly feel. We had the event in my mom's building in the Sur St Clair Gallery and the space was absolutely perfect for what we did. Everything from the old wide plank flooring to the exposed brick walls to the steel beams worked to create a great manly atmosphere.

In the background you can see the Happy 30th sign we (and by we I mean AMY) put up! This is Steve getting his gift. The three of us decided to get the boys all the same thing, they got a 4 pack of the DJS custom homebrew, two REALLY nice cigars with matches, a tall pilsner glass, and a card from all of us. I'm pretty sure that was a manly, fun gift that they all enjoyed!



Here are the labels for the homebrew! I made one with Jon's picture, one with Steve's and one with Dave's, the rest of the information on there is the same on each.

This smile made all of the sneaking, all of the hard work, and the long hours totally and completely worth it. Happy 30th Love! Hope you enjoyed it!!

Um. Patriotism, S'mores, n'Stuff.

Happy 4th, errr... 6th of July! We spent Independence Day in high style up on my mom's roof where the mojitos are strong, the hot dogs and purple chicken are plentiful, and s'more making is an artform.

After Finnegan was born, my mom and Rico stopped having huge parties up on the roof for the 4th and instead we have a quiet(ish) family dinner on the roof, followed by the best firework watching in town. Click here for a round up of last year's festivities. I kid you not, it's like a movie screen filled with fireworks right in front of your eyes. No neck craning. No porta potties. No fighting for a spot of grass.

The boys even used Papa Rico's tickets and went across the street to catch a few innings of the Hen's game in between dinner and the main attraction.

Finn actually behaved after Captain Safety (aka: Lyndsey) told him that if he stepped off the deck, gators were going to eat his feet. Nothing like a scared shitless 2 year old to harken in the celebration of our nation's independence. Right?

All in all it was a great, quiet (except for the BOOMING fireworks) night and let's face it... you can't beat the views.

Hope you had a safe, happy wonderful 4th!

Dear Blog,

I miss you. I really do. I'm not sure why you've been pushed aside like an old toy, but I was reading you tonight and laughing and finding recipes that I totally wanted to use again and wondering why I ever gave you up. Sure, you're time consuming, but you're also a fun reminder of how things really were. Just the pictures of Finnegan alone made me smile. I'm thinking of coming back to you. Don't get excited, maybe just slowly at first. A post here and a post there. I still have Finn's 2nd birthday to document and Elise's grad party and Annabelle's fundraiser and Megan's wedding... enough to keep me busy. And then there is the whole do I keep it private or make it public thing. Is it worth it to go through and scrub real names? Is anyone besides Em still checking in (and giving me shit for not posting!) from time to time?
Cheers,
Michelle

Elise's Grad Party

After a heated poll, we ended up going with a hybrid of Elise Yellow and Elise Posh Picnic. Her favorite colors are yellow and red so we went with black, white, grey, yellow and red and it really worked with everything. Elise specified that she didn't care about anything except the desserts so that left us with free reign over most everything. She piped in opinions here and there but mostly left the concepts up to me. She is also all about anything retro so we went with a slightly retro feel while still keeping it young.

The invites! I dreamt these up and had them printed to postcards that we slipped into her graduation announcements for the adults and she was able to hand out the cards to her friends as well.

Since she only mentioned desserts when we were brainstorming food ideas, we went with an INSANE dessert buffet. It, by far, topped anything I've ever done in scale and variety. We used old fashioned 1 & 2 gallon jars to fill with candies and cookies, each with a custom tag in the party colors.

Try as I may, there wasn't a good angle to get the whole thing in at once! We set it up in an L shape in the corner of the screened in porch.

Elise's mom made this collage and we also framed lots of pictures of her throughout her school years to add to the food tables, the dessert tables, and the gift tables. We also had all of her senior pics in a stand up frame for people to look at.

One of the drink stations! This one had pink lemonade and iced tea. We also had soda & bottled water for the kids and beer for the adults in a commercial cooler outside. Both drink dispensers were picked up at Costco and have been used a TON all summer!

Each of the tables had a centerpiece of different flowers in reds and yellows. I made a super EASY cuff to go around basic vases out of scrap paper and stickers that I printed with Elise's picture on them.

The best idea we had was to have a tent put up. It kept people outside and enjoying the pool and the backyard rather than inside the house. We used the inside to set up the food, appetizers in the kitchen and the dining room held the two buffets, half Mexican food and the other half picnic foods. There was so much food I can't even list it all!

We set up black bistro tables along the pool and long banquet tables under the tent. There was also seating on the deck and in the tiki bar. We also had the dj set up under the tiki bar.

Finnegan bought Elise the book, "What Would Audrey Do?" for her graduation gift. She's a big Audrey Hepburn fan so I thought she'd get a kick out of it.