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Cookout 4 Cari

I’m sure we would have had a party anyways (had our lives not been turned upside down) so I didn’t want that to prevent me from doing something.  And honestly, after this past Monday I cannot wait to do it again.  Unfortunately I scheduled a minor medical thing for me Tuesday morning so I didn’t drink & eat quite as much as I planned but I still had a good time.  And I think everyone else did as well.

We named it for her and the topic was discussed.  I was semi-prepared for the conversations.  I would have talked more but I was also fine limiting my conversations.  I am positive people hesitate touching the topic because it only results in tears.  I was thinking about getting people to do some scrapbooking while they were there.  Something to pass the time but something that would have brought up a lot of emotions.  I started working on pictures but man that is so difficult to do.  I have so many pictures, so many memories, so I just gave up but will get back to it in the not-to-distant future.

Anyways…back to the party

It’s hard to find a day that works for the majority of people.  So I decided on this past Monday hoping that people would be back from their weekend away or without plans.  Is Memorial Day weekend a good choice, I’m not sure.  60 some people responded that they would be there.  Another 30+ couldn’t make it.  It would have been great to have everyone but there will be other times. 

So for a week straight I watched the weather forecast.  Rain 20%, 30%, 40%, 60% … SHIT!  Of course it was sunny and warm every single day for at least the past 2 weeks.  Even Saturday & Sunday were hot and sunny.  But not Monday.  The forecast only got worse.  One of my friends e-mailed a couple days prior saying the weather would be fine.  I knew she would jinx it.  At just after 11am the thunder and lightning rolled in. 

I ordered a tent, which without the party literally would have been a wash, a jumpie for the kids (and the adults too), multiple cases of beer, 3 pitchers of sangria, burgers, hot dogs, sausages, ribs which I slow cooked and were amazing, pasta salad, mostaccioli, caesar salad, all the other food that everyone else brought, tables and chairs … I was relatively prepared … I just couldn’t do anything about the rain (the rain which ended up flooding some of the guests basements and brought hail to others). 

But the people still trickled in.  And eventually the rain stopped.  We blew up the jumpie, which had pools of water on it.  A majority of the food was eaten.  We didn’t do that good a job on the beer but that could have been because of all the sangria I made or the vodka and jager shots.  That sangria was pretty lethal. 

Usually I’m really good at picture taking, but I slacked a little on Monday.  It’s one of those things I find a bit more difficult to do.  Having the pictures is priceless but it’s just not easy to gather up the effort to take them

Fortunately me and the kids got some pre-rain time in the jumpie when it arrived in the morning.  It was crazy humid though.  We were sweaty messes.

And then came the rain

But I had my helper with me to dry up the chairs.  She was a soaking mess.  But she had so much fun.  It was a warm rain so even though she and I were soaked it really didn’t prevent us from getting things done

Finally the jumpie was up.  I might have to buy one of these things.  Figure as much as it cost and as many kids as there are, the investment is probably worth it because it will be used.  Before inflating it though the thing was had puddles of water a foot deep in places.  It really rained

We got into dress #2 because the other was soaked.  She really was cute but she just didn’t want to take a picture right then so she was pouty

And some of my crazy friends (the kid-less ones) kept things going til close to dusk. They ROCK!