Sweet Cheeks Fishing Party

My girlfriend, Carisa, is married to Juan.

Juan is

JUST NOW

turning 40.

I know!

She's a cougar.

She asked my friend Sumita and I to plan a surprise party for him as a sort of reunion of all the buddies who went on a fly fishing trip back in November.

When he got the name "Sweet Cheeks."

I am pretty sure it was Monte who started it.

Sweet Cheeks

Not sure if you can tell in the above picture, 

but Juan's waders fit like a wet suit rather than, well, waders.

Juan was quite proud of his skinny jean shark skin waders and strutted out of the lodge in Arkansas like a peacock.

And Sweet Cheeks was born.

Monte however, got the Bozo the Clown waders that were so big and floppy he feared they would fill up with water and drag him down the river never to be seen again.

Two guesses on which one is Sweet Cheeks and which one is Monte with the Bozo waders.

Take a moment to soak it all in.

And by soak it all in

I mean laugh.

The guys all decided at one point to fly fish from boats.

The boat that Sweet Cheeks was in started to pull away from the dock before everyone was in so, 

being the gentleman that he is, 

Juan grabbed hold of the dock to pull it closer.

The weight from the next passenger sent the boat wobbling and further away from the dock.

Yet Sweet Cheeks hung on

his hands firmly on the dock yet only his feet remained in the boat.

He was perfectly parallel to the water.

The boat roared with laughter.

Yet there Sweet Cheeks remained.

Perfectly parallel to the water.

One of the men decided to grab ahold of him to pull him back into the boat.

But where to grab?

The well-fitted skinny jean shark skin like waders left little to the imagination

and a lot of slickness to the touch.

After some consideration, and a quick waist grab,

Sweet Cheeks was saved

and a legend was born.

These are the kind of people for whom 

a party pretty much begs to be thrown.

Of course, there would be a fishing theme.

We covered Sumita's large kitchen island with white table cloth and used my vintage metal picnic basket as a centerpiece for a container of Goldfish crackers and a Dollar Tree fish bowl of gummy worms.

We also used one of Ellie's little tea set baskets (propped open with a wooden skewer) for peanut M&Ms and more Goldfish crackers. We made sure to use Swedish fish in a fish bowl as well.

We painted the bottom of white lanterns red to look like bobbers.

We used string to attach the bobbers at different heights
to a light fixture.

It is dark, but the banner says "Aged To Perfection" and
"Happy Birthday".

Look at the determination on Carisa's face.

 The SAME NIGHT that Sumita and Carisa abused their key privileges in my house, they came back over with all their cake and icing supplies to decorate the fish cake they were creating.

Why my house?

1.  I have a garage fridge that could hold the cake. Sumita's basement fridge had just died and flooded part of their basement.

2.  The guys decided to come back early from their fishing trip to Michigan since no one was catching any fish.

They made two sheet cakes but one in a thicker pan to make up the fish's body.

They cut the regular cake into two horizontally to make the thin cutting board underneath the fish.

Carisa and Sumita mixed colors until they got the shade of brown they wanted.

I watched.

Then they cut the thicker cake into an oval for the fish body and used the extra pieces to fashion a tail.

I watched.

There was various mixing of greens for shading and whatnot.

I became lost.

Just a blob of white icing became the fish eye with a squirt of black for the pupil.

Carisa used a paintbrush to give the impression of scales on the fish.

Nice touch, Sumita, with the Spanish icing writing!

So the above is what creative Carisa and Sumita can do.

I can do this:

Isn't he cute? In a "Yes, I am smiling with cut up pieces of my own
guts in my mouth for you to eat for enjoyment" kind of way.

Add caption

Sumita found the Pepperidge Farm fish shaped cinnamon bread that we impaled with a skewer and stuck in the "Redneck Goblets" that our friend gave us.

He said when his hardware store started carrying them, he immediately thought of Monte and I.

Which should tell you volumes of our standing in the neighborhood. 

  I love a good photo area. 
I think every party should have one to force pictures to be taken. 

Yes, I said force. 

We used two nets from Dollar Tree found in their Luau party supplies. We just hammered the heck out of Sumita's walls with little nails to swag the netting on. We had her husband, Mark, attach some of his fishing lures to the netting.

 Monte and McDaniel bought this 4 foot fish pillow at Cabela's back in April during Shadowing Day for this specific purpose.

I bought some goofy glasses at Dollar Tree and then Mark threw in hats and a fishing net to make up the "Prop Basket".

I love this! Look at Juan's face. I choose to believe that is joy and not dread behind
that smile. I love Sumita's posture to the left--I can just hear her laugh (which
is the most amazing, contagious laugh EVER.)

It worked!  That is Juan a.k.a. "Sweet Cheeks" walking in to all his fishing buddies yelling "Surprise!"

 Carisa said he took one look at the Happy Birthday banner when they walked in and said, "No!"

Pastor Mike sneaking around the corner just
as I snapped the picture.

The men battered and fried fish outside and watched 7 cats come out of nowhere to check out what was going on

just like in an old cartoon

and to rub on Monte.

It is like they KNOW how allergic he is to them

and they just don't care.

Birthday boy blowing out the candles.

It was so nice.

We gathered on the deck after dinner and listened to fish tales and other stories and

we laughed

and laughed 

and laughed.

Then I forced everyone to pose for pictures.

Monte and I kicked off the photo shoot.
I totally think I am pulling off those glasses.
In an Inspector Clouseau kinda way.

Sumita and Mark. This makes me laugh.

Marcy and Mike. He is the pastor of our church.
They are such great sports.

Jeff and Laurie.
Jeff is the one who "rescued"Sweet cheeks.
It was a very delicate, heroic situation.

Sumita and Mark's daughters:  Alyssa and Sara.
Sara's friend, Kory.
I love that they are hams.

Sweet Cheeks Family:
Diego, Carisa, Logan and Juan.

Sweet Cheeks and Carisa.

Oh my word! That girl. If anyone could ever ride
a fish--it would be her.

Such a cute couple.

Aww. 

Birthday love.