Tis the season…grad party rand0ms <3

I am loving the end of school year photos on social media. It’s particularly poignant to see the senior’s last day in a side by side photo of their first day of Kindergarten. It tugs at my heart as I know how fast those years went for the parents and grandparents of that sweet face. 

We got to attend a graduation party Sunday evening and since we really didn’t know a lot of people, Russ and I got our plate and sat alone in the midst of tables buzzing with family and friends of the three grads hosting the event. 

It was kind of like dinner and a show.

We enjoyed the food and just observed all that was going on around us. It was sweet and an honor to be included by this family in such a special evening.

I was also reminded of our own years hosting these events and so here are some randoms to commemorate some of the thoughts that have been making their way across my mind this week:

Random #1

Since Rachel was our first rodeo with graduation parties, I will start with hers. 

We had no idea what to expect as far as attendees because if we learned anything from living here, people do not understand what RSVP means. 

Our sweet sister-in-law Sonja offered to help me with food prep. She was a God send as I barked out orders for filling trays and mixing up dips and having minor melt downs and freak out’s. She quickly understood why no one in our immediate family willingly signs up to be my sous chef.

Ever. 

We put out a lovely spread and she graciously took over the task of refilling trays from the surplus containers in the fridge and pantry. 

At some point though, one of the guests joined the task force and provided one of my favorite memories from our first grad event. 

So….

Random #2

Our front door offered a small entry way, a long hall way to the kitchen,  a living room to the left and a staircase to the right. The living room was packed, the hall was packed and I was stuck answering the front door. 

Amidst the noise I heard my name being called. I looked over the heads between me and the kitchen and spotted one of the guests who was probably 6’ 6” waving a couple of empty Sprite bottles. 

With a huge smile he called out, “We are out of punch. I found these in the pantry, is the red juice somewhere else?” 

I hollered back that it was in the basement fridge. With a big nod, he maneuvered towards that door and I knew without a doubt that punch bowl would be ladle-ready in no time flat. 

“WE”…I loved it. He took ownership of the grad party because he loved us. He saw a need and he met it. 

I laugh every time I remember it.

Random #3

At the same party, we had a lot of church friends who stopped by around the same time. Not only did they have teens around our teens’ ages, they had young boys who were buddies with our son John. 

He would have been 11 at the time. 

Unbeknownst to the adults and teens in the house, the younger crowd had discovered our stash of water guns in the garage. We realized this when a couple of families (including our pastor) were asking for towels and perhaps a change of clothes as they were going to be moving along to another party. 

There on our porch stood several preteens, in their nice party clothes, dripping wet and grinning like crazy. They had hoped this would deter their parents from dragging the off to yet another party. 

They were wrong. 

We handed out dry clothing and thanked God our friends found it as funny as we did.

Random #4

When Sarah’s grad party rolled around four years later, I was a bit smarter about the food trays. I still would need to rely on someone for punch detail, but we fixed duplicate trays of everything being served. 

Sonja signed up again to be my side kick. 

The water guns were safely stored away.

Switching out trays was easier than randomly filling empty spots. 

We didn’t run out of punch. 

A good time was had by all. 

Random #5

With a second grad party successfully snugged under my belt, I entered into John’s with full confidence. 

Pride goeth before the fall. 

This time it wasn’t the garden hose that brought me down.

The girls’ parties were basically invitation driven. Even with the unknown RSVP count, I at least had an upper number in mind for guests. 

With John, I didn’t factor in that he was attending a small Christian school. In addition to the paper invitations I sent out, there was a kind of word-of-mouth system that got added to the mix. 

Being a veteran thrower of grad parties by this point, I planned the double trays with a healthy dose of remembering I tend to over do. I scaled back my amounts a tad so we wouldn’t be eating leftovers for the next week and smugly prepared for our finale event. 

It was not long before car loads of teens, families and teachers descended and less than halfway into the party, supplies were running low. 

Siblings were dispatched to the nearby Kroger with orders to buy fruit trays, summer sausage, cheese slices and more crackers! 

At one point we were popping microwave popcorn and digging bags of goldfish crackers and chips out of the pantry. 

It was hectic, hilarious and we loved every minute of it. 

I do remember as we were cleaning up, I made the children vow that if I ever suggested we could do the food for a wedding for one of them to slap me back to my senses. 

Seriously though, those grad parties are good memories. Thanks for humoring me to listen. Now I am getting hungry for a piece of cake and a nice glass of punch. Hope we have some….may need to call for back up <3