Paraguay Party

So if you attend the American School of Asuncion you will be invited to 40 birthday parties a year.  Upon arriving here (after our 3rd party) I decided to create a rule about this.  You must PLAY with this friend at recess in order to attend the party.  This has cut our party's down to just a few each year.

So Emma was invited to a birthday party on Friday.  She is good friends with the little Paraguayan girl that was hosting the party so we added it to our calendar.  Lucky for me this friend only lives 6 or 7 blocks straight down the road.  I had a vague idea of where I was headed.  As we were driving down the street we could hear a ton of girls screaming in a back yard.  "That has to be it!"  So we pull over and start looking.  The numbers on the house didn't seem to match up but it was a corner house I I thought the numbers must match up with the other street (they do weird things here, who am I to second guess their logic.) 

So the guard waves us over to the door to the backyard.  While we are waiting Emma says to me very quietly, "I hope I'm not over dressed."  She was wearing her cute black skinny pants with the sequin belt and a beautiful shirt with some sparkles on it.  I tried to reassure her as we entered the back yard.  We can see the girls are jumping on the trampoline in the the far corner of the yard.  But it was dark and the yard was very large so we couldn't see them very well.  I walk her to about the middle of the yard and realized none of the little girls were yelling "Emma you came!" as I had expected (because we were about 40 minutes late.)  Then as we got closer I realized all the girls (now I can see they are about 16) are in their bra's and panties, while jumping on the tramp.

I looked at Emma, she looked at me, I quickly said, "This looks like a swim party.  I don't recall that being on the invitation."  So we headed back to the guard.  He looked at the invitation and then assured us that we were at the wrong birthday party. 

We were one block off but easily found the party on the next street, where there was a totally different atmosphere.  They had hired a DJ and brought in a huge plasma screen TV, with a disco ball, fog machine, 2 waiters serving drinks (that I truly hope did not have any alcohol in them), a dance floor, karaoke machine, bar style seating all over the patio and confetti.  Most of the kids were dressed up and if asked I might even say Emma was a bit under dressed, although it didn't matter because there were so many kids there she quickly got lost in the crowd. 

The invitation stated that the party ended at 10:30 but as I headed out the door the girl's mother told me not to come pick her up before 11 or 12 because she didn't quite know when the party would end.
 
I arrived shortly after 11, there were fewer kids there but the party was still going strong.  Emma however was ready to head home. 

I guess the moral of the story is, Paraguay birthday party's are like a box of chocolates.....