Caden's First Birthday Party

January 5 marked the first birthday party of CADEN. We first met his family at the wedding of Caden's parents RON & CELESTE, who got married back in December 2004. So it was quite an honor for me to be asked to host their child's first birthday party. (For my mainland clients, first birthday parties in Hawaii are very very significant events, much like bar mitzvahs, except for babies instead of teens. Many parents rate this as the second most important party they ever had to throw, besides their wedding. So for Ron & Tran, this was HUGE.)

Since it was a daytime event with a good mix of children & adults, we needed to help them create a good mix of activities that appealed to both kids and their parents. And we did! For instance, one game for the kids was called Balloon Pickup. After blowing up several bags of balloons, the kids had to pick up the amount of ballons I called for. So if I said twelve balloons, they needed to scramble and pick up 12 balloons, or they would be out of the game. It was very very cute watching the children run all around the dancefloor trying to hold onto their balloons and chasing after the ones they still needed to get.

For the adults, we played a new game called Golf Ball Chop. This was a crazy activity in which each adult contestant was given a pair of chopsticks. When I said "Go," they scrambled to the center of the dancefloor, which had about a 100 golf balls in a hula hoop. The team with could pick up the most golf balls with their chopsticks by the end of the game would win. By the time we were down to the last few balls, EVERYONE was around the dancefloor watching the spectacle and cheering for their favorites!

By the end of the day, RON & CELESTE were happy, and Caden has many memories to look back upon as he grows up!