Ahoy, Ye Matey!

Anja and Lukas have been important friends for us. They are the two (non-related) kids closest to our family.

Theirs was one of the two houses to which Calvin trick-or-treated last year, and Calvin can always count on having Lukas as a playmate in the church nursery.

So it was appropriate that Calvin's first non-family birthday party was for his good friends, Anja (5) and Lukas (3).

In honor of "talk like a pirate day", it was a pirate school party --argh! The invitation was a letter in a bottle, so cute!

This being our first party, I wasn't sure whether Calvin should dress like a pirate before the party, or whether he would don the proper attire as part of the festivities at the party. So I put him in pirate stripes beforehand and was pleased to find that the hosts provided bandannas for all the kids.

The party was pirate school for the kids. They were each tattooed before learning how to speak like a pirate, shoot cannonballs, fish (for ducks), and follow a treasure map for gold!

Calvin was the youngest of the 12 children present. He played each of the games, but a modified version. He wasn't blindfolded while fishing, for example, and he was first in line so he had the best shot. He kept up well, though, traipsing around the neighborhoods and sitting on the ledge with the big kids as they divided the booty.

Now we're ready to hit the party circuit, and definitely have some good ideas for our own parties to come!