Theme: Green Finger

Location: The Rainforest Retreat, Seattle

Year: 2026

Art: Kyle Mertl

Invite Backstory:

My son John suggested we do a ‘00 Artichoke’ James Bond theme for the 2024 party but the horse was already out of the barn with the ‘Harvest and Bloom’ theme. When ramping up for #18 we revisited the concept but my artistic chops weren’t up to the job so we called cousin Kyle, a great artist, to help us execute ‘00 Artichoke.’

We started out with the ‘license to grow’ theme but thought there would be confusion about what we were growing. We cycled through ‘license to mow’ and “license to go . . . to the party’ but they weren’t up to snuff.

When we hit on ‘green finger’ we couldn’t stop giggling so we knew we had a hit.

Party Highlights

We had a beautiful day and a great crowd (180! guests) from all stages of life.

Some long-time friends came, including Leslie Bell Jacobs from Meadow Pool (first met at 4 ½ years old) and Charlie Rowbatham from kindergarten at Glorietta (first met at 5 years old)! Also attending were friends from high school, college, fraternity, graduate school, past companies (JD Edwards, Smartsheet and Groove), home school families, swimmers, neighbors and family.

The food was great - the artichoke chef delivered the best stuffed artichokes ever and all that was left of the low-end meats and liquids were artichoke sausage wrappers and three floating kegs.

There were an endless stream of kids on the slippery slide, the croquet games were spirited, there were unlimited sun-gold cherry tomatoes for the many garden tours and the Porch Pal band delivered two rousing sets. The band added a new tune for the party - a great trumpet feature of ‘I Can’t Get Started’ (clip below).

The Saturday-night traveler dinner was also awesome. Dave Emmanuel from my fraternity arrived a day early and helped me and my daughter bake delectable desserts from our yard: strawberry / rhubarb pies, apple crumbles, plum tortes, peach cobblers and blackberry crisps!

Perfect crowd, perfect weekend, perfect party!