Mission : Impossible - Glow in the Dark Party

Remember back when school let out in August and I planned to have a little kick-off-the-summer glow-in-the-dark party for the kids?  And it never happened because I got a little sick?  Well, FINALLY the glowing stars aligned and we had ourselves our party.  

It was worth the wait.

So.  Much.  Fun.

We are lucky enough to have a huge stash of some really legit glow sticks from my brother-in-law.  We love to break them out here and there for extra fun, mostly in the summer.  So, Sunday night, after what had been a pretty cruddy day, actually, we all came together on the front lawn, just enjoying dusk, and each other.  It was so good, and so welcome.

Soon, one of the kids had the idea to bring out the glow sticks.  Everyone ran around playing with them, and of course, true to my nature, it didn't take me very long before I wanted to take pictures.  It took me a few minutes to figure out my settings, but once I did, we were in business. (Also, the dog we were sitting may or may not have been attached to a glow stick for a while, too.  Cuteness.)

Everyone had so much fun experimenting and then checking out the results, and then coming up with new ideas to try to make a cool image.  They totally got more complicated as the night went on.

Here's what settings I used - I set my top settings to no flash, and then made sure my camera was on MF - manual focus.  (I have an older Canon Rebel.)  Once you get your shot set up, push that button and hold still until you hear the shutter open back up.  Or better yet, use a tripod, if you're the fancy type.  Me?  I really know nothing about photography except that I love to play at it, so if you have any great suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

 Pretty soon we were onto numbers and words.  Yay 2013!  You'd think it was New Year's or something, huh?  By the way, I love that little clever exclamation point down there.  Tyler's hand made a great dark space between the line and dot.  Smart man, that one.

SAM!  Sam did his S, Tyler did the A, and Madelin the M.  We were all strangely thrilled when we got these figured out well enough to read them.  It took some serious communication and teamwork - a good little family exercise, I suppose!

Then Ben!  Ben and James made the underlines.  Cute kids were endlessly patient and helpful.
There were moments of frustration trying to figure it all out for some, but not those guys!  Oh, and little tip, if you are the glow stick letter maker, make you letter backwards.

By this time, everyone was ready to bed.  We eeked out one last name, and then it was time for the kids to head to their sleeping bags in the tent in the backyard.  Maybe I'll remember to write more about that later.

Such a truly fun night.  I hope it's seared as well in those kids memories as the glowing lights are in these photos!



Check out our big summer Mission : Impossible plans here.  And some of the activities I've posted about are collected here.