I am pooped today. Well, it was quite a week this last week! I have been online less due to the work PC dying and the home pc limping. I also had the killer cold / sinus & ear infection / bronchitis thing going on. All in all I was plain pooped. This was with me throwing a party (45 people) at my house on Saturday!

We had the wedding beer tasting / mixer! We set up 8 different country stations and decorated them as silly as can be (crowns in England, Lucky Charms and a bag of potatoes at Ireland, David Hasselhoff photo at Germany, windmill cookies at Holland). The decorations became sillier as we got down to the wire – and it was down to the wire! I wish I could describe them all. My brother's wife and my best friend were simply genius in taking international silliness to an extreme. I am pleased to report my co-hostess and I were able to shower and change prior to Guest arrival, but it was close!

I am going to brag here and say it was a great party! The patio was done and the house and yard looked good! (Insane to have done that 2 weeks before the party, but I'm glad we did) It is wonderful to have a co-host because you can actually enjoy the party more. She handled food (we hit GFS and Costco and went buffet style) while I kept the activities going (we made passports for each of the guests to make notes on the country stations they visited – there were fun facts to learn from and beers to sample).

My brother contributed awesome photo shops of my sister and her fiancé (he put her head on St. Paulie Girl and his on Sam Adams). We made these photos into coasters that were prizes for completing the passport. Since we couldn't find the Polaroid camera to put the guest's own photo in the passport, we cut out famous people from People magazine and glued them in. It was hilarious – I was Jennifer Garner and my future brother inlaw was Dr. Phil. Somehow we even had a picture of Jerry Hodak! Everyone had mini mugs on yarn around their necks for the beer tasting part – it held less than an ounce so you could taste a lot of different beers without getting too loopy!

Everyone had a great time and I am so relieved it is DONE! My Dad said it was "marvelous" and he is a tough judge so I am THRILLED. Now I can stop stressing and enjoy summer a bit more! I can't wait to catch up on my sleep this week! My cold sounds so much worse while I feel so much better – why do you sound fine when you feel horrible and sound horrible when you start feeling better?

Yesterday I simply collapsed and slept. I did a good deal of clean up so the house and yard are nearly normal (DH did more than me, bless him!!) We just have some props to return to their owners and a very few stash and dash things to recover.

Pooped and Pleased