Adieux

On July 16, we had a Going Away/Sort-of-Surprise party for Jon. It was only “sort of” a surprise because he knew we were having a family dinner, but he didn’t expect to find the whole fam-damily!

We did a Stars & Stripes theme and it turned out AWESOME thanks to the help and hard work of family members (all the stuff that looks amazing was not done by me :))

  
I’m not sure if you can tell, but these pizzas were massive. We got them from a local pizzeria that does 36” diameter pizzas. Jon loves a good giant pizza!

His brothers and younger sister took him out for a Jeep ride. One last sibling hurrah before he went overseas…and the perfect diversion. As soon as they were out of the house we broke into full on Par-Tay mode. (Well, Par-Tay Decorating mode, anyway.) When Jon and his siblings pulled up later and he saw all the cars he was like, “What the…?” And then he saw my dad in the front yard. “I think that’s my father-in-law!” The look on his face when he came through to the back yard and saw everyone there was priceless.

And then the biggest surprise of the night. The one I almost blurted out millions of times as I was planning because I was so freaking excited! I made arrangements with Greg, his best friend from high school (who we hadn’t seen in about a year and a half), to come out for the party to surprise him.

Best. Moment. Ever! It’s so funny to see Greg peeking around the corner before running out and tackling Jon! :D

BFF Surprise

Chatting with our friends Matt & Heidi.

Our sister-in-law, Whitney, was kind enough to take some pictures of the party with her super-fancy camera. She did a fantastic job. I love the pictures she took. (Hers are the reeeeealllllly nice looking ones. ;))

Whitney also worked with Kristie to string up these fabulous lights for the party. After everyone left, I snuck out the take a nighttime, glow-y shot of how it looked. Makes me want to string up twinkle lights in my own patio someday!

Thank you so much to everyone who came and to those who worked so hard to make this the best possible send off for Jon. It meant so much to him (to both of us) to have so many of his family and friends come to show their love and support as we were about to embark on this difficult chapter.

XOXO,