Yo Ho A Pirates Life for Me!!

I know our pirate party was a couple of weeks ago but I'm finally going to blog about it--yeah. (the following will be a fairly detailed, lengthy narrative. if you would prefer the short version just know that the party was super super fun and then skip down to the section entitled The Three worst things that can happen when hosting a pirate party.)

This party was not only fun for me the night of, but I loved every minute of the preparations. Once Brett and I decided to have a murder mystery dinner for our birthdays I started checking out various options online. I initially saw a medieval castle party that looked awesome and intense (which I am hoping to do sometime in the future) but thought a pirate theme would be easier for me to do for my first time. We bought the game from nightofmystery.com. I found lots of decorations online. Things like a treasure chest and little pirate cups and tikki table lamps, you know, stuff like that.
I also found a lot of stuff at the dollar store including little pirate toys (which were great on the mantle and on the pirate ship cake) and pirate treasure (ring pops, candy necklaces, rolo's and other various candy). Finally I hit the flag store because no pirate party is complete without the ol' Jolly Roger flag. I bought Bretts costume online but I made my own. I was a galley wench and had a great time making my costume myself. (Now I want to make my own renaissance dress when we have a medieval party!!) It was probably the most intensive or at least large sewing item I have ever made on my own before. (I'll post a pic when I get one). Oh and I also got some great pirate tunes from itunes. No pirate party is complete without a little yo ho music!!

The game was fun to prepare. Since I got it online, they sent me a pdf of all the game materials which I could just print from my computer. There were invitations, a pirate code, pirate lingo, and paper money to use for bribery, blackmail, stealing (hey we were pirates) or whatever means you could think of. The game also had certificates you could print out and give to the winners: best costume, best actor, most money, and who solved the mystery.

For dinner we had what I thought sounded like a nice caribbean meal; bbq chicken legs, a cuban dish for beef that I could cook in the crock pot which I found online (I am hesitant to serve guests something that I have never tried before. . .but this turned out great. I found it on allrecipes.com) rice, black beans, and of course a tropical fruit tray which included fresh pineapple, kiwi, mango, grapes and apples. Alicia made a yummy mango salsa which really tied all the flavors together and Rachel brought a fabulous spinach salad. I also made a birthday cake which was a pirate ship set asail on the ocean. It gave me some trouble but turned out pretty cute. We also had homemade rootbeer. YUMMY!!

On the night of the party, everyone showed up and looked awesome! I was so impressed with everyones costumes. (Again, I'll post more pics soon). Seeing everyone in their party attire was worth all the effort right there. It was great to visit with friends and pretend to be someone else for the night. Even if. . .actually, especially since I was Uma Scarr the galley wench. We had the governor, his daughter, the commodore and a handful of pirates in attendance. (yes, the story is loosely based on Pirates of the Caribbean.) I wont say anything else about the story. . . .just incase anyone who reads this is lucky enough to play the game sometime. (I would love to do this for a family reunion or something like that). Anyway, we all had a swashbuckling good time and I cant wait to have another murder mystery dinner.


***The Three Worst Things that can Happen When Hosting a Pirate Party*** (all of which happened to me!!)

#3. The baby gets sick two days before the party therefore causing the host to have at least 8 hours (probably more) less time to get ready then was originally anticipated. The result was a costume that wasnt completely done and a galley wench who wasnt as prepared as she would have liked with her pirate lingo.

#2. On the morning of the party, when assembling the pirate ship cake, the "ship" looks like it has just been beaten in a fierce, bloody pirate battle. When I say beaten, I mean pulverized! It ended up with three fairly recognizable pieces and the rest in hundreds of unrecognizable pieces. Luckily I started in the morning and had just enough time to bake one more cake, freeze it, and try again. It worked much better the second time, but it certainly had me worried and frenzied throughout the day.

and the #1 worst thing that could happen when hosting a pirate party is. . .
having 4 bubbly gallons of homemade rootbeer crash to the floor and spread across the kitchen and dinning room 20 minutes before the guests are scheduled to arrive. When that happened, my first thought was "oh no, the party is ruined. RUINED!!" Luckily for me, I have a very calm husband who grabbed every towel in the house plus three or four rolls of paper towels and got busy soaking it all up. After about three minutes of hyperventilating, I was able to calm down enough to help him work. We were just finishing up when the first two couples arrived. They helped get everything else going (beans cooking, more rootbeer brewing (luckily we had enough extra dry ice) the table setting finalized and other stuff like that, while Brett and I ran upstairs and put our costumes on. It was crazy, but it all worked out!!