Monday, April 30, 2007

Paper Airplanes


My son came home from school yesterday very excited because he had won the 1st grade paper airplane contest. I was thrilled for him and it brought back to me a fun memory.

About a year ago, my husband and I hosted a family dinner at our house for my husband's family. There are nine children in his family and most of them with their wives/husbands and children were able to come. My father-in-law, who had lost his wife to breast cancer over a year earlier, came as well. He brought with him a nice lady he was dating and her college-aged son. (He since has married this very nice lady.) My younger sister-in-law also brought her new boyfriend and this was his first exposure to the whole dentist husband clan (I think there are about 30 of us now.) Anyway, the day had the potential of being somewhat awkward because of several new people to the mix.

As everyone was arriving, dentist husband and toothsome #1 were sitting at the kitchen table making paper airplanes. They were trying out different designs and then toothsome #1 would go across the room and test them to see how far they would fly. As people started arriving, they would sit down at the table and join them. Before dinner was ready, everyone, with the exception of a sister-in-law who was helping me in the kitchen, was sitting around the table, laughing, trading design secrets and having a good time testing their airplane designs. None of the awkwardness I was concerned about existed. I commented about this to dentist husband once everyone had left, and he just smiled and said, "That was by design. I was hoping the paper airplanes would be a good ice breaker." I marveled at my husband's wisdom. And, the spend thrift in me was impressed that it only cost us a 1/2 a ream of paper.

3 comments:

Gabriela said...

Great idea!

Julio LOVES making paper airplanes. We have to hide the paper or we will go through a ream a week.

love.boxes said...

That is a great story. Maybe I will do this at my ward party Fri. ... a bit nervous... hosting a table. tiny yipes..

Mumsy said...

Love it. Love it. Love it!!

I think that would be fun for a ward party, Tif.