Mad Scientist Party

Thursday was Travis's birthday, and since his birthday has fallen by the wayside for the past few years, ever since Brooklyn was born 2 days later and kind of overtook it, I thought it was time to do something for him. Lately he's been pulling this crazy schedule (leaving home at 5:00 a.m. and returning at 6:30 p.m., usually does not eat) in order to accomplish all of the following: study for the MCAT (May 21), apply for grants so he can be funded next year, help his mentor apply for grants so their lab can be funded next year, prepare a presentation to present his proposal to his committee (today), and conduct all of his regular lab work and experiments on the side (last I heard this work included such words as "tails" and "digestion" - I don't know.) When he does come home at 6:30, he feeds and bathes the kids and puts them to bed and cleans the kitchen, because I am gone teaching piano until 8:30 or so. The poor boy is totally exhausted. Anyway. So that's where the birthday bash comes in!

I haven't been to a surprise party since... I don't know how long. This might be because I'm frequently late for parties anyway (and when you do that to a surprise party, you miss the "surprise" part). So I thought it would be fun to plan a surprise party for Travis, and what better theme than a "mad scientist" one! (So that the surprisee would fit right in when he arrived.) Oh yeah, and dressing as a scientist was mandatory.

Except for Logan and Bella - they dressed up as the mice!

A few "mad scientists" in attendance:

Here is our food table, accentuated with decorations from Travis's own office.

Lemon cupcakes, Travis's birthday cake flavor of choice, topped with a mad scientist. All the other cupcakes have beakers on them filled with potion (to be more technical, they are Erlenmeyer flasks. See? You learn a lot when you do mad scientist party research). When I mentioned it to Travis a few days later, he said, "THAT'S what those were???" And Spencer thought they were Ys, for BYU. Oh well, I tried!
Also, the dry ice had disappeared from the punch. We also made dry ice ice cream, which was SO AWESOME!!!! I thought so anyway... maybe because I made everyone else do all the stirring. Definitely something we want to try again!

(It's supposed to look like it was printed up by a scientist)

Favor bags
(The labels say "OPEN WITH CAUTION")
Inside: Nerds, Smarties, and a pocket protector
So what does one DO at a mad scientist party?
Build molecular structures, of course!

Actually, it was a contest, and teams (by family) could compete in one of two categories: building the tallest structure or the structure that could hold the most weight. (Materials: toothpicks and marshmallows)

Here's another messy collage of all the construction:
And the results:

Tallest Structure - 12 inches
Callie & Carl Brewer
(Night view):

Strongest structure - 3 cupcakes plus toothpicks
The Rich Family
BUT, not to be outdone, the winners of Tallest Structure set out to prove that theirs was also the strongest, by removing the upper portion and taking on a plate of cupcakes...
Over a dozen!

[However, since competitors are only allowed to enter one category, they were only awarded one prize.]

Thanks to everyone for helping make Travis's 32nd birthday party a MAD success! (Including everyone who made/prepared the food and took pictures... Basically I just did the blogging.)

Happy birthday to my REAL scientist!!!