Mission Zone Conference Luncheon, Star Wars Style

A couple months ago I was asked to chair a luncheon for a missionary zone conference held at our church building today. The instructions were to plan a lunch for 25 people. Our committee of 3 were to prepare the food, serve, and clean up. Not too complicated, right? We decided to keep things simple and have sandwiches, chips, veggies, fruit, and dessert. 

Then I had an epiphany: Why not add a Star Wars theme to it? 

There are numerous blog posts and articles about the spiritual and religious implications of the Star Wars movies, so I went with one of those. I debated about asking permission, but decided to just surprise everyone.

Here is our account, taken with our lame interim camera,

while we await replacing our broken one.

Overall Table Display:

complete with themed food labels and action figures!

Bread options: homemade wheat loaves, egg-bread rolls,
and store balloon bread 

Filling Options: Calrissian Chicken Salad,
Sliced Bantha Meat and Cheese,
or Jabba's PB and J

Fruit: Obi-Wan Kabob-i's

Vader Veggies and Droid Dip

(R2D2 accidentally got left at home, oops!)

Padawan Potato Chips

Dessert Options: Pretzel Light Sabers, Boba Fett Brownies,
and Wookiee Cookies

At each table, we included water, 

Jedi Juice (real lemonade made from Yuma-grown lemons), 

and reading materials relating missionaries to Jedis.

There was a slight pause when the missionaries first entered the room
as they were overwhelmed by the awesomeness of it all. They enjoyed the
food and the displays and some even asked if they could keep the printed memes.

And so far, I haven't been called into a disciplinary council for 

preaching Star Wars philosophies mingled with scripture.

May the Fourth Be With You!

The force has been strong as we have prepared for our Star Wars party! We have had non-stop arts and crafts for school the past week, first making a BB-8 Bean Bag Toss Game:

a Death Star Pinata using this tutorial:

Pin the Blaster on Boba Fett

and a Storm Trooper Target Practice game:

Additionally, we made a new cosplay costume for Erin.

Doesn't she make a perfect little Rey?

(pardon the purple flip-flops--no wool boots were available in Del Rio)

Dallin wore one of Ian's old youngling costumes.

We joined our forces with the Young Men of the Del Rio 1st Branch and held the party at our church building. The evening started off with Ian giving a short presentation of "How Star Wars is Religious."

Then we all played the games, engaged in light saber battles, and ate treats.

And the treats! They were AWESOME!

(We spent most of the afternoon making ours--the light sabers, popcorn,

and BB-eats.)

We played a trivia game, Jeopardy-style with "Who Said This?" 

questions from all of the 7 Star Wars movies. 

Then we ended with the destruction of the Death Star.

Ian was the rebel who blasted it to pieces.

I can now empathize with Darth Vader, 

seeing countless hours of work destroyed with a single hit.

Field Trip to Da Boyz Italian Cuisine

This year we are part of a small neighborhood homeschool group, and we kicked off the new school year with a field trip to Da Boyz located in old town Yuma. Da Boyz will take you back to the 60's, complete with an Elvis Room and Marilyn Monroe Room.

We met at the restaurant and Robert was our tour guide. 

He showed us through the restaurant, then got everyone drinks...

...and let the children make their own personal pizzas!

Here they are shaping the dough.

Next step was to add the homemade sauce.

Then they went to the toppings bar, and put on whatever toppings they wanted.

The children carried their pizzas over to the ovens 

which cooked the finished product in only 5 minutes.

(We need an oven like that!)

Then they sliced the pizzas, and were ushered 

to the Elvis Room to consume the goodness.

Delicious!

Erin and Ian really were happy to be eating pizza even

though Megan is the only one who looks it.

Group photo outside--you can also enjoy fine dining 

on the patio area when it isn't over 100 F outside.

Kristin's Cake

So...the other day Kristin from the UAZ crew set a new record for total FTHL captured in one day on our removal plot. She caught 12! April bakes a cake for anyone who beats her record. This is the applesauce cake that she made for Kristin. It's supposed to be depicting a FTHL emerging from its burrow in the sand, in case you can't tell.

Kevin doctored up a dollar store plastic lizard to make it look like a FTHL. April used an ice cream cone to make the burrow. The "edible" sand is made from sugar, crushed graham crackers, and spices.

End of February

Enjoy these random photos to end off the month of February. And please notice that we've been able to maintain our goal of keeping the family blog updated this year for our 5 remaining readers (at least for 2 months!).

Our attempt to copy Panda Express' food: 

homemade chow mein, orange chicken, and fried rice for Sunday dinner

Did we ever announce that the new cat finally got a name?

It's Kiki, and she is still very cute and very playful. 

 

Sadly, orange season is coming to an end. We've been drinking freshly-squeezed orange juice daily for the past month. The trees are starting to flower already, so we've got to get the few remaining oranges picked soon.

Megan is entering the Junior Duck Stamp Contest again this year. She chose to paint Cinnamon Teal and took her own reference photos this time. This is her work in progress.