Group Date on Steroids

My daughter who is going to be turning 17 in a few months and yet to go on a date.  She had finally reached the magical age of 16 and there were no prospects around.  I surely wasn't sad for her because I wasn't ready to deal with all that yet.  But, it had to happen sooner or later.  Her friend had tried a couple of times before to get Emma to go on one of these group dates, but she always said, Nah!  I'm not sure how she was talked into this time, but she finally agreed.  She was not thrilled about her "date" but we had one of those nice little chats about giving people a chance and maybe he would be cool as a friend and how she needed to learn to start evaluating what qualities she liked in guys by observing them in different settings etc…

So there were 8 couples and 1 solo guy-which was awesome- he was owning being single.  They decided that each "couple" had to be handcuffed to each other.  The theory being that they would have to talk to the person and get to know them and couldn't wander off and talk to other people.  I was fine with that as long as the handcuffs were removed when they were driving.  They also decided to have a progressive dinner.  They met at one house, had appetizers at the next house, then it was our house for dinner and then another for dessert.  

I need a restaurant staff, so I enlisted some helpers.  Jared decided to dress up and Jordyn thought that was a good idea.  Jared also pulled out his british accent for the night.  Everyone loved it.  

 

First they played a game called "triangles."  I could not figure it out at all and neither could most of the kids, so I didn't feel as bad.  I did get the ring leader of the night to spill to me how the game worked.  Then we served them spaghetti - because that's what they asked for.  I wasn't about to complain about making the worlds easiest and cheapest meal ever.  I did make the sauce from scratch, because I'm awesome like that - haha

I wasn't sure if the kids were going to kill me and never come back when I overheard a couple of them wonder if they should bless the food.  It was about a 50/50 mix of Mormons to Non.  I piped up and said that I thought it was a great idea.  They got a bit of a panicked look in their eyes for a moment and the Non's weren't exactly sure what to do but someone stepped up to offer the prayer and they did it.  I then went into the other room and told them the the guys hat the other table blessed their food and asked what they thought about it.  This table took more of the comic relief approach when one of the member boys asked everyone to hold hands to say grace.  One of the Non's looked at him weird and said "wait, aren't you mormon?"  Busted!  He did say the "normal" prayer while they all held hands.  Good job guys.  Sometimes you need to stretch a little. People can't respect who you are if you are hiding it from them.  

So, Emma survived her first group date and I had fun having all the kids over.  They were all super respectful and great fun to be around.  

Nate was in Honduras but he face timed me in the middle of the party so I took him around and had everyone say hi to him…oh mister social loved that-not.  Muwahaha