I'm Back!

What a whirlwind 10 days I have had! It was busy, chaotic and so much fun. I am going to try to cram it all into one post so I not only have it for my family "journal" but also so I can get back to spring decor and crafts before things quickly turn to red, white and blue!

I will apologize for some of these photos in advance because many of them have come from others' phones and have been handed down several times. I am also going to show you a lot of what we did with the decorating and food because, this is a home decor blog after all. I hope I don't bore you too much with this very personal post but it was an important event in our family and I like to document all of those.

Let's start with daughter #1's arrival on a Friday afternoon. We headed immediately to daughter #3's house for a casual dinner and visit before heading out on the golf cart to look at some of Jen's decor projects in and around town. Then, since Kris hadn't seen downtown in a bit...and there are many changes...we headed there and had another snack and glass of wine as we people watched and visited.  I must say that our downtown has had quite a revitalization and it was a happening place.

Saturday we were off to Tallahassee. We met up with the girls and their dad and we were off for a delicious meal and visit. Then, we ladies proceeded on for manis and pedis...always a treat for me because I don't indulge myself very often. Lol 

We spent Saturday night taking it a bit easy as we had an early graduation ceremony on Sunday morning. The day was beautiful and, even though the ceremony graduated PhDs, Masters and Bachelors it went much more quickly than I had expected and was beautifully done. Caitlin received her Master's degree in Integrated Marketing Communications.

Since it was still pretty early, we went out for brunch and visited the rest of the day until our reservations that night for the celebratory dinner. We went to a restaurant called Lucilla and our meals were phenomenal!

After leaving Caitlin in Tally to begin packing up her apartment, Kris and I headed to St. Pete on Monday morning. We had the rest of the week to pull the party together. It was a bit chaotic because we were working on the house at the same time as two different contractors doing renovation but somehow...with a lot of help from my brother and sister-in-law who arrived a day before the party...we were able to find all of the decor and food that we wanted. And, after a few showers, we were good to go outdoors. We set up tables in the back yard that was strung with lights. 

We bought white hydrangeas for the vases and then added mounted pictures on skewers to the arrangement. We did two different pictures on each skewer so the guests were able to see lots more Caitlin memories.

As you look at this picture, we set up the drink station in my daughter's office - to the right. We had frozen drink machines, wine, beer, sodas, lemonade and water and it was convenient to have it all in one place. There is also a bathroom and sink in there so that helped as well. Our goal was to display as many pictures of Caitlin over the years as we could, so we slipped three bulletin boards crammed with photos in here.

To the left of the outdoor picture is the back door to the house that takes you into the kitchen where we had the food set out and another display of pictures. After changing the menu several times, we went with charcuterie boards. We ordered two meat and cheese boards from a professional and then we made up the veggie, fruit and nacho boards with more kinds of dips and sauces than I care to remember.

There were decorated cookies and mini bundt cakes for dessert. Since the invite was for an open house, not everyone RSVPed so, determining food amounts was hard. Believe me when I say that there was threes times as much food still in the fridge and cupboards as you see here so lots of refilling could take place!

We also used the dining room for another photo opportunity.

And then we had the photo-op area. This was a hit and so much fun once we found the right person who could make what we wanted!

We squeezed in yet another photo op on the mantle where we strung pictures of Caitlin from kindergarten to high school graduation and then ADPi sorority composite photo. It is so hard to believe that all of those years have gone so quickly!

I think a fun time was had by all...including the guest of honor!

I am home now and getting back to routine. I have some more spring to share before we move along to the 4th of July so stay tuned...and stay safe!