Amy invited a bunch of friends for a pool party at our property. She was pretty excited to have a get-together of her own. As we watched dark clouds gather, she and I were a little concerned that a downpour was on its way. We figured we could always end up at our house if we had to, though it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.
We stopped at King Sooper's for some plates, cups, and napkins and then at Domino's for pizza. We arrived to find a couple of girls already waiting. Ali P. was kind enough to pick up Misha and Kristen and take them to her house for a late-over with her girls. As we were getting set up, I noticed that the gates closed, so Amy and some her friends ran to the entrance to meet up with the girls as they were dropped off.
Thus commenced a lot of laughter, shouts, eating, splashing, and having fun. I noticed at the beginning that there was a division between her church friends and school friends, but by the end of the night, they were mixing together and having a lot of fun. One of their favorite things to do was to scrunch all eleven girls on to the slide, take some pictures, and then suddenly go crashing in to the water.
The weather calmed after 6 pm. The girls went from the pool to swimming in the lake--some even swam over to an island. Teen girls can be quite silly as I heard, "Lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my!" yelled across the water.
I hung around for the party. I felt a bit weird sitting in the Pilot for three hours, but I also didn't feel that it was appropriate to leave them without parental supervision either. My iPad wasn't fully charged and ran out of battery after two hours, so I had to resort to playing games on my phone. The favorite, profound quote that I overheard was: "I'm not a third wheel anymore. I'm my own bicycle." (Hmmm, sounds like it could be incorporated in to a great talk.)
Chris arrived home from a day of hiking just before 9 pm when the party was to end. He was able to help me get things tidied up and to put things in order. Amy was pretty pleased with the success of the party. I'm sure it will be the beginning of many more.
