Theme: Birth, Sweat and Cheers

Location: Leaping Lizard Lodge

Year: 2008

Invite backstory:

John is born and we move to South Florida for work. The summer was hot so we did some sweating and it turned out to be a fun year-long adventure.

We really like Florida, but two things were missing - the Artichoke Party and artichokes in general. As luck would have it, just like the U.S. Artichoke epicenter Castroville was drivable from the Sky Palace, the U.S. Stone Crab epicenter was also drivable from the Leaping Lizard Lodge (our new home - lots of sun, lots of lizards).

I drove deep into the Everglades, including through Alligator Alley where the signs warn you to watch out for Alligators crossing the road, to pick up 100 lbs of stone crab legs from a wholesaler. It was a 3-generation family business with 3 levels of giant freezers lining all the walls up to a 20 foot ceiling. I remember the grandson telling me that they used one of those swamp boats with the big fans on back like in Flipper to get the crabs and that they made 60,000 lbs of ice every day to keep the crab cold.

I proclaimed my invitation to a Stone Crab Party entitled me to a 10% discount and they agreed.

This also adds the ‘ish’ to annual as we skipped a year and also an ‘ish’ to the Artichoke Party because it was really a stone crab party. When we later skip party #13 and go straight to #14 for luck, we add our 3rd ish, so the official party title is now ‘Xish Annualish Artichokeish Party.’ Our commitment is that we’ll never ‘ish’ the Party - it will always be great!

Party Highlights

It was a great party and we did bring in some Artichokes for old time sakes. I remember that the stone crab shells were too hard for crab crackers, and we had to use a mallet to break them open. And when you hit it hard enough, the shell would explode into so much shrapnel. After a few near misses, we learned how to wrap the claws in a napkin before bringing the hammer down.