Tea Party of Five

The neighbors who cared for our cats while we were in Boston came over for a tea party today.  The kids spent the morning cleaning the living room, setting the table, and creating place cards. There were even places for Mr. Big (the stuffed penguin) and Felicity, Sis's American Girl doll.  And Bud decorated the table with nesting penguin figurines.  Sis places the gifts we'd gotten them at their spots--a penguin mug for Miss K and a bracelet and some chocolate for M.  We'd made brown-sugar shortbread the day before.  But we added some chewy pralines, jam thumbprints (from the store), and freshly-popped popcorn.

We had a delightful time chowing down--few people can say no to popcorn!  We talked about our trip to Boston and M's new school.  And the young people took turns telling jokes.

• What's black and white and red all over?  A sun-burned penguin!  (If you said newspaper, you are behind the times 'cos papers are in color now!)
• What do you call a baby martial artist?  Young Fu Fighter.
• Why did the chicken cross the playground?  To get to the other slide!
• Imagine you are in a car teetering on the edge of a cliff--what do you do?  [Refute all guesses about backing up, jumping out, etc.]  Stop imagining!
• You are a school bus driver.   You pick up six kids.  You let off three.  You pick up five.  You let off four.  What is the bus driver's name?  Yep, your name.
• You are in a mansion and the power has gone out.  You can go through four doors--pink, blue, yellow, green.  Choose one.  Now you see a hallway with two doors--in one is a monster that might kill you and in the other is an electric chair that will kill you.  Which do you choose?  Yep, electric chair--because the power is out!

And those were the good ones!  The rest were some made-up ones.  But I think those might have made us laugh harder (but since they made so little sense, I can't relay them here!).  We all cleared the table and then the kids went out to play while Miss K and I talked a bit, so nice to get that chance.  

Only the cats were no shows, to our surprise, considering how much they liked our neighbors.  I guess they were upstairs recovering from having us home again!