Another harvest party goes down in the annals

And then lades and gents, the time that we had all been waiting for had arrived. It started with subtlety, as secretive inquiries were made to see if so-and-so could borrow such-and-such. Yes, they would be welcome to borrow that--no questions were needed. Then it gained boldness; for example, as I went down to the bibleschool girls' dorm to borrow my own little something, they refused to let me into the bedroom where they were congregated. But I didn't feel offended. Secrets are almost as holy as hiding Christmas presents when it comes to the Harvest Party. And that is what was arriving.

I had schemed and persuaded Mom, Craig, and Clyde to join with me in a group masquerade, so as 6:30 Saturday evening rolled around, we were scrambling about, coloring, cutting, taping, trying out our costumes and laughing at eachother. Mom had to rush down from Fairview, but soon we were ready to go, although the half past six mark had already gone by. So arriving at the Maine House, we grinned with anticipation and filed down the library hall to make our grand entrance. It was even more dramatic than we had first expected. Mr. Incredible (that is, Clyde), loomed monstrously in the doorway and flexed his huge knee pad muscles as everyone in the room inside burst out laughing. Then Elasta Girl (i.e. Mom) followed, with Violet (ahem, me) and Dash (Craig) bringing up the rear. We were none other than the incredible family of Incredibles, and our incredibleness was a smashing hit.

As we entered the room, I noticed that it was full of strange people. Of course if you looked at that scary all-in-black FBI agent twice, you would realize that it was only Rachel A., and if you peered through the branches of a leafy tree, you would be relieved to find out that no one had totally morphed into it, but it was only Jayne R. But that wasn't the worst of it. Occupying four seats were two extraordinarly fat people. Poor chaps, I wonder who invited them? WHAT?! Those fat people must be so fat that they had to grown an extra head apiece! Sure enough, sitting complacently in a rather large dress were Katherine and Bria, and out of the obese gentleman beside them popped Megan and Vanlora's heads, with two little feet peeping out of each pant leg.

Soon we were introduced to all the other unique people. Our fearless leader Diane came as she visualizes herself in several years: with purply gray hair, mismatched socks, crooked teeth, and the like. Then there was a whole family of Crayola crayons (Brandon and Mary's creative way of involving all four of their children together in costume), an elegant Lady of Shelot in a well blanketed boat (that would be Andrea of course, always the literary one:), a grinning yet not at all fierce pirate Amy P., and a dude-like Shannon R. Sitting beside her was a beautiful Queen of Sheba personified by Katie G., while Rachel C. was dressed as the fair Rebecca from Ivanhoe, and Kate S. took the role of dazzling Cinderella. Andy, posing as a chainsaw, was sitting dangerously close to the treeish Jayne, but Phillip was an experienced forester to be a mediator for the two, with a little help from Andy's friend who wore the hideous mask of a wacky woodsman. Also, two Ninja (I must say that I don't know how to spell that!), garbed all in black with masked faces, were ominous to behold, but when we saw that it was just Derrick and Isaac D., our fear dissipated (a little). Wesley was original to come as himself (probably the funniest costume of all), except his blond hair was replaced with black curly locks. Then there was Ari W., all very sharp in her WAC uniform, Kaitlin M. looking very Western, and Emily M. appearing quite Rennaissance. Mr. Hansen, with big yellow boots and a football mask claimed that he was the Hunchboot of Notre Dame (or something to that effect), which brought a few chuckles, as his randomly dry humor often does. Andrew B., also masked, wearing black, and armed with a sword, was discovered to be the Dread Pirate Robinson (or is it Robins?), and, as eerie music played, a box in the corner suddenly began to shake and convolute until a brown faced Dave came bursting out with a threatening yell, before he explained that he really was nobody but he just wanted to do that.

Besides the Crayon family, the little kids were also present in their own costumes. A dashing Robin Hood was found in six year old Michael, and his little brother Gabriel was charming in his tin foil helmet as Leif the Lucky (they've been learning fun stories now that they've started homeschooling). Not to be outdone, Timothy appeared as Winnie the Pooh, Peter as Tiger, and even little David came as a 1 Dalmation even though he's barely six months old (it's amazing how these kids come up with these things at that young age:).

After introductions were made, Diane ushered us through a variety of crazily fun games that she is renowned for. And since I realize that this can be the least interesting part of the party (for those absent to hear about anyway) in comparison to hearing what people came dressed as, I will not dwell it. However, not mentioning the delightful creativity of the games we spent so long enjoying would be a shame, so you'll get to hear about it anyway (some of the games a few may even recognize from past youth weekends).

First there was the jelly bean version of Pit, in which you milled about with ten sticky jelly beans in your hand, shouting out numbers and exchanging colors with people who had even more hot sticky jelly beans to offer. Needless to say, no one felt like eating the candies when we were over (except little Jeff A. of course). Then we played hot potato with baby food jars, in which if you got stuck with the jar you had to open it up and take a bite. Grrross! Next we tried a game appropriately called Spew, in which we had to put an alkaseltzer tablet underneath our tongue and see how long we could hold it with a mouthful of Sprite before we had to spit it out. In most cases, it would start to go down people's throats or up their noses before they got rid of it (luckily we did this on the front porch facing OUT), which was what happened to me pretty quickly since I had heard that Mr. Hansen had mentioned that we would have to make a quick trip to the hospital if we swallowed it. Dave, Shane W. (sp?), Melissa, and Rachel C. were the valiant winners of this contest.

From there we split up into teams and proceeded through a variety of team related games: q-tip wars, trivia, using straws and tape to cushion an egg from a fall, building a bridge with newspapers so that a toy car could pass through it with a huge stack of hymnals on top, and the candy gathering game. If you haven't played this one, it's when each team possesses an animal sound effect and one person from each team dashes around picking up candy as his or her team members point to it and bark, moo, or meow. My team didn't manage to win anything (except one in a series of q-tip wars), but that's okay, because Craig and Bria's team didn't win anything either, and all in all I think everybody had a wonderful time. Who wouldn't, when Diane is in charge?

Finally came the next thing that Diane is famous for: the food. Need I tell you of all the delicacies that she prepared so expertly? It would only make your mouth water if I told you about the peanut butter balls, cookies, tarts, mini cheese cakes, shishkabobs, tiny pigs in a blanket, and pizza rolls that she prepared, so why bother? I couldn't do her food justice even if I tried. Just remember Diane's cooking, and let your imagination take off from there.

And with that last thought in mind, picture one of the best and most fun parties you've ever been to. That's Diane. That's the Harvest Party.