TOP SECRET . File# WF2011

This last Saturday Megan and friends were off to Winter Formal at the Richard Nixon Library.  Before heading out to the dance they had a great time taking pictures at the Oakley building AND eating dinner in the lobby.  The pictures turned out unique which is what the kids wanted - I think they are tired of dance pictures at the park.  We even edited the photos to look like they perhaps came from an old spy camera.

Here's a few from the night...

The whole crew.  A great bunch of kids. 

The girls.  Loving the pictures of the girls in their nice dresses posing on a dirty tank.

Also love these shots of the giggling girls.

The boys.  I think they thoroughly enjoyed the tank.

This was the one shot we edited different just cause the sun was so awesome.

Megan and her date Austin.

There was definitely no lack of cool places to take pictures.  The kids posed with guns...

and cool maps.  Not to mention torpedos, mines, motorcycles, bomber chairs and more.

Megan and Em with Megan's date Austin and his sister.

Dinner was set up in the lobby where the kids feasted on a fancy dinner of In-N-Out burgers and fries.

Once dinner was done a limo picked the kids up and whisked them to the dance.

After the dance they headed to our house for breakfast - waffles and breakfast casserole.  At our home they were greeted by the lovely piece of modern art created by Luke especially for the occasion. 

doing disney a different way

We go to Disneyland A LOT!  

With annual passes it's easy to go often.  Megan and Emily go frequently since they are always there with us and then often go with friends too.

While I was at Cub Camp (see previous post) Emily headed to Disneyland with the Arizona Baker's and Megan headed out with her friend Austin.  

In an effort to make Megan and Austin's trip to Disneyland a bit different than all their other trips to Disneyland I created a scavenger hunt that had them running through Disneyland and California Adventure taking pictures, collecting items to bring home and answering questions.  I'd hoped it would make yet another trip to Disneyland more fun.

They were great sports and did amazingly well.  They did get some help from family but that made it all the more fun.

One of my favorite "challenges" that they completed was a special cell phone challenge that I sent to them mid way thru the day (up to that point they had been using a list of challenges I had given them)  The challenge... buy a balloon, find a child under 8 and give the child the balloon.  In order to get the points for this challenge they had to text me a picture of the completed task.

When I saw this picture I died.  How adorable is this little girl?  And how happy does she look to have just gotten a balloon from two strangers?

After seeing this picture my mind is now racing with the idea of having a scavenger hunt service party.  How fun would it be to have teams racing around the community doing good deeds?!?!  I think it would make a great party.

holding the record for longest birthday post ever

I'm not feeling fully recovered from the festivities of the weekend but if I don't post now it'll never get done.

Does she look like she had fun?  

She did!

Megan's party was Friday night and I think the celebration was everything her 16 year old heart could wish for.

(A big thank you to Shelley for all the great photos of the kids and party set-up)

We celebrated her sweet 16 with sweets...lots of them!  There was not lots of party prep time due to my vertigo and our family trip to Havasupai so nothing was homemade (except for the cupcakes and a friend made those for me (and also mopped my floor) - thanks Leslie!)  I liked going the store bought route it made it all a bit easier.

Reese's Peanut Butter cups (Meg's favorite), taffy, giant pixie stixs, lollipops and Little debbie cakes.  Thanks to Michelle for helping with all the food set-up.

The sugary goodness didn't end with the dessert table...we had a table full of sodas

as well as smores by the fire pit

The hit of the "sweets" though was these two.

No, not the kids although they both are sweet - the wax mustaches and lips.  The kids pulled those of the dessert table almost immediately.  They provided plenty of great photo ops.

Then we went a little red neck and served some canned nacho cheese.  In my defense I made it a bit ritzier by serving it in my chocolate fountain.  You're jealous, I know.  When the teenagers are here we almost always serve this golden, gooey, goodness of yellow cheesiness.  They love it.

We served some other savory snacks...peanuts, pickles, taquitos, veggies (most of which were left at the end of the night)  Those teens are going to pay when they hit 40 and their metabolism slows.  They'll wish they had eaten their veggies instead of the abundance of nacho cheese.

We didn't plan much in the way of activities as we knew the kids would mostly just want to hang out.  We had foosball (thanks for the table Uncle Jeff and Aunt Jill) and air hockey (thanks Smiths)

I had also purchased some fortune teller fish that I remembered playing with when I was younger.  We put them out around the lounge areas and the kids had fun finding out their fortunes.

The night mostly consisted of a lot of hanging out with friends

as well as some hanging out with family

cousin Dusty with his friend Carson

cousin Tyler with some of his college buddies - they drove all the way from Utah

for Megan's sweet 16...that's what we're telling ourselves anyway :)

We also had a few party crashers

These 3 obviously found a way to get around the strict high school kids only (unless you are a college aged cousin) rule.  

In Mackenzie's defense she was invited by Emily.  

Gorilla boy?  Well, how can you not let in the gorilla that crashes through the back gate and terrorizes all the party guests?  I guess it's one of the perks of having the Chamberlins as neighbors :)  we're glad you stopped by gorilla boy!

And Zane?  We'll excuse his party crashing too since this picture is priceless.  It is so getting blown up for his 16 birthday.

Did you notice a pattern in the above pictures?  Same backdrop?  Hands down, the best part of the night was the photo booth we put up.  I am so planning on doing this for more parties.  The kids at the party took over 2,000 photos (no exaggeration) and now Megan has photo memories that she will treasure.

We rented pipe and drape from a local rental company and set up a 9x9 room in the front room.  3 walls with black curtains and one with striped fabric and some pendants that I made.  I set up my camera on a tripod (thanks Rona) and added a corded shutter release button for the kids to push for pictures.  

For some fun we threw in some chalkboard thought bubbles that a friend cut out (thanks Herk) and that I painted with chalkboard paint and added a handle to the back of.  These were used to write notes to the birthday girl, funny sayings or my favorite...

Kids would be set for a picture and then friends would write comments on the chalkboard without the picture people knowing what they said - they just had to hold the sign and smile for the camera.  There were some funny things said and even funnier photos taken.

I realize that this post is already waaaaay too long and I have no intention of posting all 2,000+ photo booth photos but I have to post some.  You are free to leave now (if you haven't already)

I'm unable to load anymore photos on this post - seems I have hit the limit.  Stay tuned for further photo booth posts - you don't want to miss some great pictures.