Anchors Aweigh

We had a fabulous farewell party at our house last night.  We wanted to be able to say, "Good-bye" to all of our friends in the area, so we threw a party.  I love having people over to our house and this was by far our largest party ever.  We had about 80 people attend.

I really enjoy organizing parties.  I decided on an Anchors Aweigh theme.  It seemed appropriate as we are leaving on Navy orders.

We rented a big jumpy for the kids.  The tiger did not fit the theme in any way, form or fashion, but it did keep the kids busy.



I ordered sailor hats and the kids were able to decorate them.

Some of the big kids got in on the hat decorating.  These are our good friends, Tad and Sarah, with their daughter, Allison.  Their son, Coleman, is Aaron's best friend.  He must have been running around somewhere with Aaron.





Hannah and Skyler (a little girl from our church) are wearing their hats they decorated.  Baby Charlie (who is now 3 1/2...we have to stop calling him that) is trying to shoot them with a water gun.

 



We also had bubbles, water guns and Frisbees.



Aaron and his friend, Olen, having a water gun fight

 







 

 

Rachel and her friends spent most of their time in the front yard playing with the frisbees and listening to music.

I bought each of my kids a bottle and cut pieces of paper for guests to leave them a message in a bottle to read when we reach Virginia.



Galen (a little boy from our church who is in love with Hannah) and Zac (a friend of Rachel's...His mom, Laurie, and I are also good friends) are writing their messages to go in the bottles.

 

I ordered sandwich platters, made fruit and vege trays, bought potato salad, chips, cookies and cupcakes.  A few of our friends contributed.  There was tons of food.  PK thought I bought way too much, which I did, but I would rather have too much than not enough.  The hostess in me wants everyone to have plenty.  I kept telling the guests that PK thought I had too much food, so no one was allowed to leave until the food was gone.  Ha!

We asked people to bring lawn chairs and we set everything up in the side yard outside the garage. 

 



Nikki (feeding Holly and apple and making a new friend), John (Nikki's husband), Stan, Jim and Cheri (All sweet friends from church)

 



Bob and Grace and Brad and Lorita (More sweet church friends)

 



Katie lives in our neighborhood, but we knew her through the kids' school before we moved out of the rental.  Chaz and Erin are friends from church.  That is their little curly headed blond baby.  Adrienne is one of the youth from our church and a friend of Rachel's.

 



Josh and Brittany...Josh is our new youth minister.  He is really passionate about the Lord and leading the youth.

 



 

Jennie (Aaron's martial arts instructor) and her friend, Mike

 



The weather was perfect.  What a blessing as we have had an unusual amount of rain and hot and humid temperatures.  It was slightly overcast which kept it cool (relatively).

I made it through all the good-byes without any tears. 



Hannah and Libby saying good-bye

When Rachel said bye to Montana and Hannah said bye to Libby, I thought I would lose it.  Those were tough farewells for the girls.

I went outside this morning to do some post-party clean up.  It was so still and quiet and every spot I looked was filled with a memory of our friends having fun.