International Party!

Today was the International Party at the kids' school. It's the biggest fundraiser for the school...food tables, activities for the kids, a raffle, and a silent auction. 

We got to the school at noon to finish up preparations for the Americas table which turned out to be the United States table. No other North or South American countries contributed food or helped out so that made decorating easy.

We only had a few people ask what country we were. Hilarious.

Dan and Lauren were in charge of picture taking since I was all about the table. Here are a few of the other tables. These were taken before all the food arrived.

Great Britain

France

India

Israel

Japan



Mediterranean countries

1:00 was the Opening Ceremony. There were performances from the Lower School Hip Hop group, a group of Indian kids, and the Lower School principal and his band. He's the one in the kilt.


1:30 Let the eating begin!

The Americas table had brownies, chocolate chip cookie bars, M&M cookies, cinnamon coffee cake, rice krispie treats, apple pie, mac&cheese, BBQ sandwiches, and root beer floats. Brownies were the first to sell out.

I asked Dan and the kids what their favorites were.

Derek: Anything from the Americas table.
Lauren: French candy, bubble gum and caramel flavors. Danish layered cake. Polish candy, marshmallow covered in chocolate. Russian lingonberry juice and caviar. ("Caviar pops when it's in your mouth!") She said she liked LOTS of tables.
Dan: Indian! Chicken curry and "some kind of chickpea thing." He also tried the Russian pancake, cream cheese, caviar thing, items from the Israeli table and Korean chicken.
Ruth: I didn't try nearly enough food. Next year for sure. I did get a plate from the Israeli table. (LOVED the humus and the couscous salad.) The Korean chicken was tasty as well. I was out of time so I asked Derek to go around and get a few dessert things for me. I have no idea what table they were from but they were tasty.

Root Beer
When I was at the school Friday and people saw the menu board indicating we would serve root beer floats, they were concerned because they thought root beer was beer. Like Miller Time. So on the ingredient list that everyone was supposed to put by their food, I made a big deal about it being non-alcoholic. And of course, one guy came by and asked for an alcoholic root beer.

As the day wore on, kids were asking to buy just the can of root beer. No problem. An American was out in the hall and saw a woman stop a boy with a can of root beer because it was beer and it was only for adults. The American told her it was a soda and the boy got to keep his root beer. (I guess in years past some countries have sold alcohol for the adults. Vodka, to be specific. Guess which country.)

The best was when a man came up and said, "I heard you were selling beer." Dan told him it was root beer, a soda. The guy's face fell, but he took one anyway.

We did sell a lot of floats and some people said it was their first float in years. That made me happy that so many people enjoyed it. We started out with 40 cans and ended up with six. Not bad.

Lauren posing with my Nursery friend, Julia. Julia has older siblings that attend ISH.

It was a fun day!