"Woke Up Late This Morning, A Storm Was Really Rolling"
Well, in my opinion, the Sayonara Extravaganza was a smashing success.
The party raged from 1 till about 11:30, with my family hanging out predominantly in the earlier portion. They all stayed until five, so I'm assuming they had fun. Brian even called today to personally thank us for having he and Kelly over, which was really nice of him. The adults all gave me presents that were far too generous, and I got some from the kids even. Cassie gave me an adorably hilarious card, Chels brought me a new collage to take with me as well as two funny signs to hang up in my room in Japan, Jax gave me an iTunes card, and Anna, Dave, and Greg combined their powers to give me several pairs of chopsticks, regular and strawberry Pocky, and a book called "Rice as Self" that I saw at work and had wanted to read. They also drew me a great card I'll have to scan in later. Timmy found an ad for a book called "Saturdays and Teacakes" which was just badass.
And, of course, I was presented formally with the ceramic egg with Harriet Hell Hill's signature on the bottom from Delanie.
Tons of people stopped by and it was like a weird cross-section of life for me. Liz, Timmy, Erin (and her Mike), and Chris (along with his friend Anna) made up the Chi group, while Eddie, Rich, Karen, Binh, Susie, Delanie, and Lindsay (W) comprised the Lieb's crew, Leslie and Cassie were the Nihon Vanguard, and Dave, Matt, Greg, Chels, Anna, and Jax represented Russell 1B. It was a lot of fun.
We ate delicious food (Aunt Franny made taco salad, Aunt Sheila made a fruit platter, and Aunt Julie baked a cake, not to mention the hoagies, meatballs, home-made pasta salad, potato salad, and mountain of desserts) and drank a ton of beer (Coors in the quarter-keg, and various kinds of bottled beer in the coolers, Magic Hat and Strongbow courtesy of Eddie's Mom...also Binh brought a handle of Bacardi rum) and had an all out good time. A fierce beer pong tournament raged, with Delanie and Binh as the unbeatable team. There was some volleyball, a lot of trampolining, (naturally) me rolling around on the ground, and other fun activities.
Though we didn't listen to all of it, we relived times past with the video Anna gave me as a graduation gift, too. I need to watch it without the roar of many drunks in the background so I can hear what we're all saying.
Anyway, I had a fantastic time and I hope everyone else did as well. Clean-up is finished and I pretty much took the day off to regroup. With the party and Jaime's move, I didn't really get any time to myself this weekend, so today has been nice. I finished all my thank you notes as well, and it seems that this Friday after I pick up my paychecks for the past three weeks, I'll be able to pay Dad back for the plane tickets.
Thinking I'll do 8 to 5 tomorrow and Wednesday, cause I'm going into the store on Thursday and Friday. Les is coming home with me for our Weekend of Fun (tm) and then I'll go in to the store again on Monday of next week to take her back.
Going up to Jaime's again tonight to help her out with some other moving related things.
The party raged from 1 till about 11:30, with my family hanging out predominantly in the earlier portion. They all stayed until five, so I'm assuming they had fun. Brian even called today to personally thank us for having he and Kelly over, which was really nice of him. The adults all gave me presents that were far too generous, and I got some from the kids even. Cassie gave me an adorably hilarious card, Chels brought me a new collage to take with me as well as two funny signs to hang up in my room in Japan, Jax gave me an iTunes card, and Anna, Dave, and Greg combined their powers to give me several pairs of chopsticks, regular and strawberry Pocky, and a book called "Rice as Self" that I saw at work and had wanted to read. They also drew me a great card I'll have to scan in later. Timmy found an ad for a book called "Saturdays and Teacakes" which was just badass.
And, of course, I was presented formally with the ceramic egg with Harriet Hell Hill's signature on the bottom from Delanie.
Tons of people stopped by and it was like a weird cross-section of life for me. Liz, Timmy, Erin (and her Mike), and Chris (along with his friend Anna) made up the Chi group, while Eddie, Rich, Karen, Binh, Susie, Delanie, and Lindsay (W) comprised the Lieb's crew, Leslie and Cassie were the Nihon Vanguard, and Dave, Matt, Greg, Chels, Anna, and Jax represented Russell 1B. It was a lot of fun.
We ate delicious food (Aunt Franny made taco salad, Aunt Sheila made a fruit platter, and Aunt Julie baked a cake, not to mention the hoagies, meatballs, home-made pasta salad, potato salad, and mountain of desserts) and drank a ton of beer (Coors in the quarter-keg, and various kinds of bottled beer in the coolers, Magic Hat and Strongbow courtesy of Eddie's Mom...also Binh brought a handle of Bacardi rum) and had an all out good time. A fierce beer pong tournament raged, with Delanie and Binh as the unbeatable team. There was some volleyball, a lot of trampolining, (naturally) me rolling around on the ground, and other fun activities.
Though we didn't listen to all of it, we relived times past with the video Anna gave me as a graduation gift, too. I need to watch it without the roar of many drunks in the background so I can hear what we're all saying.
Anyway, I had a fantastic time and I hope everyone else did as well. Clean-up is finished and I pretty much took the day off to regroup. With the party and Jaime's move, I didn't really get any time to myself this weekend, so today has been nice. I finished all my thank you notes as well, and it seems that this Friday after I pick up my paychecks for the past three weeks, I'll be able to pay Dad back for the plane tickets.
Thinking I'll do 8 to 5 tomorrow and Wednesday, cause I'm going into the store on Thursday and Friday. Les is coming home with me for our Weekend of Fun (tm) and then I'll go in to the store again on Monday of next week to take her back.
Going up to Jaime's again tonight to help her out with some other moving related things.