February is such a good month for an indoor murder mystery party! I was able to find a time for the Sandbergs & Olmsteds to come over and party!
The setting was a Napa Valley Vineyard, with Italian ties! So, for our main course, I made up baked Ziti (one of Billy's favorites.) I ended up making a second casserole, because I definitely overbought!
I don't make this super often, because it is not my favorite, and because Billy likes the sticky noodles lain out in neat little rows, which is very time consuming. I've tried the dump method, and he didn't care for it as much, so rows it is!
My mom scored 3 dozen or so wine glasses from the free bins at MSU. I only needed 12 for the party, so when it was time to decorate, I pulled out some 'vineyard' looking decor, and used the extra glasses as accent pieces! Taking inspiration from the audio cookbook that I listened to a year or so ago, I went outside to see what I could pull from nature to add in. The dry, decorative grass in our flowerbed was perfect!
I painted some cardboard to make signs, and finally got to display my wine bottle basket!!! The flowers were an impulse buy. They were dead looking and sad in the Kroger clearance bucket, but with a little love and water, they were beautiful for the party!
Grace helped me cut some blooms to add to our nametags.
Wine corks are few and far between these days, most of the wines we buy have the screw top, but we still had a small stash from years past that I was able to pull out to add to the effect.
Winking Owl no longer uses corks, so this will totally be vintage in 25 years!
I made a glass storage box to keep these in my sister's basement for future parties. I am super impressed that my mom was able to snag all of these for free!
I'm starting to think that Grace loves to party as much as I do! She wanted to help with decorations, so she made some favors for our guests to take home! She worked hard to make the notes look 'old.' = )
Next time I will split the cheese/crackers, olive, and grapes onto two boards, because it was tough to get the tasty treats at the other end of the table!
Aldi let me down on the Napa wines front, so I ended up with a generic "California" blend.
I borrowed William's Christmas gift to play the cassette. Grace tried to help set it up, but this antiquated technology is difficult!
I boiled water and used our fancy flower mold to make ice cubes, but they still had white in the middle. = ( They were an improvement over our regular ice cubes though!
Our party crowd! David was the new owner of the vineyard, Ralph Rottingrape, Kristy owned the vineyard next door, Hedy Shablee, Kim was the wife of Ralph, Tiny Bubbles, Mark was a German wine merchant, Otto von Schnapps, Billy was an old vineyard hand, Papa Vito, and I was the local successful movie star come home, Marilyn Merlot!
We had a great time, and since I didn't give this game to anyone I know, the murder was Billy! I got it right, but I feel like I always think it's Billy. I need to tally up how many times he's been the murder, because I'm pretty sure it's a handful at this point!
We finished in record time, and decided to play a second game! Billy bought me the Hunt A Killer: A Wealth of Murder for Valentine's day. It was labeled "hard" and they didn't lie!!! We solved all the mini puzzles, but were worn out by the end, and ended up just guessing at the murderer with minimal evidence, getting it totally wrong. Oh well. It was still fun!
Looking at every piece of evidence, using technology! This was the bottom of a pill bottle, but was not a clue, just part of the manufacturing process, I guess.
It was a really great night, and I'm always so thankful for the time and energy people put into their costumes, and solving all of these murders, that Billy loves to commit! ; )
later days
edit 4-2-25: backdated for continuity
