The Perry's: Houston Going Away Party

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Houston Going Away Party

4 years ago Brooks and I moved to Houston the week after our wedding/honeymoon and we knew NO ONE!!!! We spent the summer just the two of us, getting adjusted to married life, unpacking our apartment, Brooks started working a "real" job, and we were just living in a new season of life. We enjoyed that time and grew close together for sure. That August I started teaching and was no longer sitting at home doing nothing. We often talk about that time in our marriage and how we had no friends, never went and did anything, and we were just "boring".

Fast forward 4 years later.... and we're having to say goodbye to over 30 friends who we love and adore and our lives have been touched greatly by them. We missed the people who couldn't join us Sunday evening, but are making plans to tell them all good bye before we leave. We had a blast at our party! Originally, we only had one evening available where we could host the party and a majority of our friends could attend, so we planned it on the night before the movers were suppose to come and pack our house us.... therefore, when we planned the party, we picked a local park as our location, we ordered Subway sandwich trays, a cookie cake, and got bags of chips and drinks to help with clean up. My goal was to not need/have to clean anything up afterwards and get to call it a night. I'll admit it was a little hard for me to not go all out and want to cook homemade desserts and appetizers or even have us grill burgers or something... i even considered making decorations. However, all of that changed the closer the party got and I'm very grateful that we planned what we did. The party was easy and we got to enjoy being with our friends.

We went to the park and found that the pavilion wasn't being used and no one was there! This was a huge blessing so we had some shade and a cool breeze throughout the evening. Mostly, the girls hung out at the picnic tables and talked, the kids ran around, played, and got dirty. We had bubbles, balls, kids baseball bats, kiddie golf clubs, etc for their entertainment. At some point all the kids were on a swing set/playground with all the dads. It was cute to watch. The men ran around and played games (threw the football, played a game called corn hole (maybe?!?!), and were just guys. It was a really fun evening. When Brooks and I got in the car, we both said that was something we wish we would have done with our friends along time ago. I think there was something for everyone at the park and was different then just hanging out at our houses.

At some point during the party, Brooks and I sat back and looked at all our friends and were humbled by how blessed we are with everyone's friendships. What an amazing experience it was to realize that we went from NO friends to an abundance of friends! The relationships we've built have impacted our lives and we have been greatly blessed with all the conversations, prayers, words of wisdom that we've received over the years. Houston will always have a place in our hearts because of our wonderful friends.

Here are some pics from the evening! Our cookie cake (that is suppose to be an airplane, not a sideways space shuttle). I love that Cade is part of our family picture! He really wanted some cake!

Hanging out and eating!

Girl Talk! Jessica, Sarah, Che

Dinner Time!

Addison hanging out with her mommy! She came to tell us goodbye! Oh how I'm so grateful we got to meet her before we left!

Guy Time! Brooks, Micah, and Casey (yep, there's Micah! Micah flew back to the states to come pick Stephanie up. They flew to Saudi last night. Oh how we're going to miss them) (until we get there)