scenes from a party

the long-awaited re-scheduled 100 year birthday party for Tenney Park has come and mercifully gone. it was a big one, planned on a big budget, by 3 people, one of whom was an already-spread-way-too-thin working mother. that's me. 

after the rain and flooding related cancellation last september, we renewed our energies this spring and planned and planned and had a tent and tables and chairs delivered only to.....get rained on again. it's been a rainy and cold week (month?), and sunday was no different. despite the efforts to make it a successful outdoor party (i even mowed under that tent, where the parks riding mower couldn't reach) we ended up moving the whole thing indoors in the park pavilion. 

tent set up, full of optimism...

mowing under the tent, optimism kinda waning....

picking up 5 sheet cakes and loading the car that morning in the pouring rain, optimism gone... 

but inside the pavilion, we got the fireplace going and all the stuff and people set up in all the places and then--BOOM--the party just happened perfectly, with all the volunteers in all the right places, and 400 people came despite the rain and the chill in the air. it was great.

the public library brought their recording tools and recorded "so so many really cool stories" about the neighborhood from the neighbors who came, including some in their 90s who have lived here their whole lives.

we scooped ice cream and served cake.... 

and our story tellers and citizen historians did a great job presenting their carefully prepared talks.

we had a little boat race around the lagoon, and it was a massive hit.

tony (our fearless boat race leader in the captain's hat) got a timing tool with a digital display for the finish line, and even passed out medals to the first place finishers in a variety of categories. 

 

 

 

later, there was an unveiling of a new public art installation with historical images of the park from 100 years ago, but i didn't get to see that because i was serving ice cream, managing questions about tshirt sales, and getting the place cleaned up. 

in the end, it was just me, a mop, and my husband taking sneaky pictures of me.