Someone asked how our Fourth of July party turned out. We had a GRRREAT time! First of all, the weather was very pleasant after months of a colder than normal spring. We even had to dig out the sunscreen.
We prepped a bit the day before so when the clock hit 12 noon, we blocked off the street on either end and took over the road. Since my house is on the corner of a nice wide residential street intersection, with a neighborhood park exactly opposite my house, it’s ideal for having a street party. Even if it had rained, we would have just tarped the whole area. As people who live in the Seattle area know, you don’t cancel an event just because it’s raining J
We put up a canopy for our karaoke host, Michael Coleman, to set up his equipment under and another canopy to cover our food tables. I had fun decorating the music canopy with some inexpensive flower leis from the dollar store that I restrung into one long strand.
We put up our umbrella from the back patio to shade the singers at the microphone in front of the monitors so we didn’t melt in the sun and could see the words on the screen.
We had over 75 people show up for the 8 and ½ hours that we were out there. The songs were continuous and we got a few people up singing karaoke for the first time –think the youngest one was about four.
Our host was fantastic. He kept track of the rotation and as our turn got closer, he’d come and ask us what we were going to sing. Michael has hosted for us before (years ago for my son’s high school graduation party with all his friends from theatre – BEST PARTY I EVER GAVE) and he prefers to do shows outside of the bar atmosphere. He’s affordable, has state-of-the-art equipment and has every song you can think of.
Since the sound was amplified, we had neighbors show up who don’t usually join in a neighborhood function. With the karaoke group invited, we had quite a few of them bring their entire families so we were guaranteed singers at the microphone for all those hours. It was nice to meet them because since we sing so much in bars, later at night, it was a rare opportunity for them to be included.
While the singing was going on, we had a constant variety of food going – the BBQ was pretty busy and I made a ton of food to add to the potluck items friends brought. I made a red, white and blue jello/angel food cake triffle, three platters of Tex-Mex dip, 50 Rice Krispy bears, a potluck pasta salad, and my son even made some jello shots for the late afternoon, early evening.
The kids and adults were entertained by my standard picnic past-times – seven bubble wands to make three-foot round bubbles, or a stream that would cross the whole road and 200 water balloons. You can NEVER have enough water balloons. We didn’t get around to playing water balloon volleyball but we did have several distance tosses and a competition with the gals and then the guys to see who could throw their balloon the farthest. They are always a HUGE hit with the kids. We also had badminton set up on the front yard but it was too breezy and too hot for me to play this year.
As we were winding down, Chuck got up and sang the “Electric Slide” by request and a group of friends were out in the street dancing. As soon as I saw Brent had his video running, I knew it was time to hide out. And yes, he posted it on Facebook. Dancing is not one of my strong points, especially when I’ve had a few glasses of wine.
With so many hands, we were able to clean up quite quickly at the end and disperse to go watch all the legal fireworks shows in the area. Chuck and I ended up at Angle Lake with Mark out on his brothers’ dock watching the display over the lake on the balmiest of nights.
The feedback was 100% positive and we’ll be doing it again next year.
