Army Navy Party

The traditional Army Navy game was on Saturday, December 9th this year.  We have friends that the husband and wife are both Naval Academy graduates so we made plans to watch the game with them which then turned into a pretty big and very fun neighborhood party.  We hosted 8 other families (I'm pretty sure there were 19 adults and 27 kids or something close to that!!) and turned it into a Army Navy/holiday party!  Each family brought a "white elephant" gift to exchange during halftime, we played holiday games with a marshmallow race and built gingerbread houses and even had a "polar bear plunge" which was kind of ironic since it was 80 degrees that day!  I made two types of chili and had cornbread and everyone brought sides, appetizers, desserts, etc to share.  It was a really fun party and the game was great which made it even better!  And then Army pulled out a win in the the last minute which made it even better!!! I didn't get a picture (unfortunately) but Rich brought out of all his Army gear and memorabilia and decorated the family room with it which was pretty funny!  We are hoping to make this a yearly tradition as it was such a great time and we are thankful for such awesome neighbors to share in this tradition with us! 

Most of the kids ready for the Polar Bear Plunge!  

A lot of them in the hot tub!  This is where they hung out for most of the time...although the day was hot, our pool is still very chilly!! 

For the marshmallow game the kids found a partner and had to take turns running down to a big bowl with marshmallows and scooping them up on a spoon and bring them back to their cup.  The winner was whatever pair filled up their cup first.  

For the white elephant game I read a story about Rudolph which used the words "left" and "right" throughout it and every time those words were read you had to pass your gift in the corresponding direction.  It was probably a little over their heads but they had fun and everyone ended up with neat gifts.  We brought two board games and ended up with a fun Christmas beanie and a bluetooth speaker.  

I am so bummed that I didn't get any pictures of our family in our Army gear or the house decorated but trust me that we were all decked out...next year will be sure to do so!  It was a great day!  

Go Army, Beat Navy!!