The Graduation Party

Joshua's graduation party has finally come and gone. Despite some challenges with the tents, the promise of rain, and an uncertainty about the amount of food we needed, it really turned out to be quite nice.

Knowing it would cost a small fortune to rent them, we decided to purchase two tent canopies at Big Lots early on in the summer. Being an "engineeringly challenged" man who has a minimal amount of patience, the first big party challenge was consructing them. The box they came in said it was a two person job but it most definitely took three of us!

Quite honestly I was dreading this little project and wishing we didn't have to do it but we did. Amazingly enough, the first tent went up with virtually no problems in a short amount of time. Yeah! This was going much better than I anticipated, or so I thought.

Tent #2 was exactly the same as tent #1 however I think the "cloud of stupid" passed over us inbetween the contruction of the two. Everytime we lifted the poles up one or more of them would disconnect from the it's corner connector and the whole thing would come crashing to the ground. Talk about frustrating! I just kept thinking it can't be this hard.

We took the corner pieces and tried to match them up to the canopy that was already up thinking we could get it right, but by the time we walked back over to the collapsed canopy our photographic memories failed us and we forgot what we just saw. We must have looked like Larry, Moe and Curley to our neighbors. Eventually the "fog of forgetfulness" moved on and somehow we mananged to figure it out and the second tent was up. I was so glad that was over! Now if the weather just held out.

Local TV stations had been advising all week that rain and/or possible thunderstorms were going to be a threat all weekend. Only small metal anchors held the tents to the ground. As we were building them I kept looking in the sky thinking the slightest strong breeze would probably send these things flying and we'd have to relocate the party to OZ! Please God, don't let it storm!

We rose the morning of the party, not to rain, but to some pretty thick fog. I didn't hear any rain over night, but my first thought was of the tents when I got up. I went to the window and was so relieved to find both of them still standing. That was good sign.

Lori and I both have a little "Martha" (see Luke 10:41) in us and are a little anal about the house being "just so" before anyone comes over so we dove right into cleaning shortly after we got up. Since our "Martha" syndrome is pretty much an ongoing thing it didn't take too long to tidy up the house. So with time to spare, we decided to treat ourselves to a bagel for breakfast and took off for a quick trip to Panera for breakfast.

Upon returning from breakfast it was time to set up the table and chairs we'd rented. The fog was still eminient and the lawn incredibly wet, but we had to get it done. We'd rented 5 eight foot tables and there was only room enough for one table under each tent so I opted to put one table in the yard and one on the patio. I'd no more than finished putting the paper table cloths on them when it got very dark outside. Rain clouds. I freaked. I just knew it was going to rain! I heard Lori come out into the garage. I called to her to the back yard, telling her that we needed to move the tables not under the tents into the garage. So here we go, fast as we can, (as fast as you can shuffle) going around the house to the front of the garaged before the rain comes pouring down. It never rained a drop all day!

A week or so ago when we ordered food for the party I thought perhaps we were ordering on the light side but was hopeful we wouldnt run out of food. A few people started to arrive and it seemed like the food was disappearing quickly. Panic again started to set in! What if we run out of food! How embarssing would that be! We decided to call Martins and order more chicken and hope what we had held out until we could get more. About 40 minutes later I jumped in the car a drove up to Martins to pick up the chicken. I figured out, all on my own, that if we were running out of chicken we must be running out of potato salad too. I thought I'll be the hero and save the day...da da da dahhhh!!! and decided to get another 10lbs of it too. We never even opened the potato salad!

It was as if people quit eating after there was an abundance of food. We had chicken coming out our ears. As the last few family members and friends were leaving it was a "blue light" special on chicken in the garage. I don't think there was anyone we didn't ask if they were sure they didnt want to take some chicken home with them. And even after they responed "no", we followed it up with "are you sure, cuz we got more than we'll ever eat!" which was quite true because neither I nor Josh eat fried chicken.

Salesmen apparently we're not. Although we did manage to 'unload' some of the leftover chicken we still ended up with quite a lot left over. So if you know anyone who wants some fried chicken, send 'em our way!

As the last few people began to leave I started tearing down the rented tables and chairs as I was certain the rental company was coming to pick them up at 3:30 and it was already 3:15. I heard my aunt jokingly say that it must be time to leave because they're taking the chairs away. I really didnt mean to be rude nor did anyone have to leave. I just had a deadline! When there's a schedule to follow it has to be followed.

3:30 came and went and no rental company. At 4:10 I decided to call them as I didn't want to get charged even more for a late return. It was a good thing I did as they had forgotten and were there by 4:30 and I spared myself any further charges.

Despite the challenges of putting the canopies together, the pending threat of rain and storms, our panic over not having enough food and the actuality of having too much....all in all I would say the party was a success. It was a great time with family and friends with good food and decent weather. However, I am relieved that Josh was our last child to graduate high school.