This past Friday, Dee graduated from the University of Utah. This girl has put in a heck of a lot of work and sacrificed an immense amount of time to get this thing done. It's not always easy to focus on something like this, especially when lots of your friends are working full time and seem to have more fun and more money than you. Dee has had a pretty heavy workload with working 30 hours a week, (40 the last semester), and going to school full time, but she has endured pretty gracefully. I have always told my kids that sometimes you have to make short term sacrifices for long term gain, and she nailed it. I'm so proud of this girl and all she is doing.
We have had the best few days. We decided this kind of accomplishment definitely deserved a big party for Dee to celebrate with her friends, so I took Thursday AND Friday off of work so that I had a full day to prepare, the day of the event to host and enjoy, and the weekend after to recover. Planning ahead and breaking things out in to little chunks is literally the only way I can manage these kinds of occasions so thank heavens for to-do lists and a generous PTO policy at work! :)
Tuesday night I ordered about 80 prints off of Dee's Facebook and Instagram accounts to decorate the house with... I wanted to display fun pics that highlighted her hilariously amusing personality. Wednesday after work I went by Hobby Lobby and a couple of other stores to get something for everyone to sign and to pick up decorations and paper goods. That night I sat and mounted all the pictures on to black paper and added gold and red embellishments and then got some of the decorations up.
Thursday I did all the food shopping, the rest of the decoration shopping and took Dee out to buy a new dress. (We may have brought home three, but don't tell her dad! ;)) Thursday night we finished up the house cleaning and decorating and started on some of the food preparation. (Shout out to my hubby, my mum and Lois for all the assists. I couldn't have done it without them!)
Friday arrived and everything went off without a hitch. We left the house just before 10am and I picked up a fresh orchid lei on our way to the graduation. It was easy to pick out Dee from the sea of graduates because of her sparkly blue frozen cap that her friend Shelby made her. (It was SO cute and SO her.) The ceremony waslong lovely. ;) I was surprised to see that some of her friends and her co-workers came out to see her graduate. Pretty cool peeps in my book! The weather was perfectly beautiful and we took loads of photos of course, then we grabbed some village baker to go for lunch and headed home to prepare for the party.
My mom did a couple of hundred meatballs for mini-subs and I ordered 200 wings from wingers, 100 bone-in and 100 boneless in sticky sauce and buffalo. Best decision I ever made! Not only were they extremely yummy, but they took a heck of a lot of work away from me. We also prepared fruit with caramel dip, veggie and cheese platters, hot seven layer dip and chips, spinach and artichoke dip with pull apart rolls, pigs in a blanket, pinwheels, caprese salad on skewers, and frothy pink punch. It was just A.MAZ.ING. I'm so grateful to my mum for all the food she took care of for me. She is the most incredible woman and I am so blessed to have her support. Even my pops was in the kitchen helping do food! Mike ran all the errands, picking up the cake, the rolls and the wings last minute. I just appreciate my whole family and them pitching in so much.
The party was a big success. Most importantly, Dee had a wonderful time and her friends were sincerely lovely to be around. There were lots of laughs and plenty of love. It was pretty late by the time everyone left, so we did minimal clean up, just putting away any food we needed to and leaving the dishes for the morning so we could get to bed.
Saturday Mike and I cleaned the kitchen early and took down the decorations and then I finally caved to my exhaustion and literally spent the entire rest of the day and night in bed... napping, watching TV, napping, watching TV, napping... you get the picture. I probably slept more than half of the day, but I don't even care... it was completely worth it.
We have had the best few days. We decided this kind of accomplishment definitely deserved a big party for Dee to celebrate with her friends, so I took Thursday AND Friday off of work so that I had a full day to prepare, the day of the event to host and enjoy, and the weekend after to recover. Planning ahead and breaking things out in to little chunks is literally the only way I can manage these kinds of occasions so thank heavens for to-do lists and a generous PTO policy at work! :)
Tuesday night I ordered about 80 prints off of Dee's Facebook and Instagram accounts to decorate the house with... I wanted to display fun pics that highlighted her hilariously amusing personality. Wednesday after work I went by Hobby Lobby and a couple of other stores to get something for everyone to sign and to pick up decorations and paper goods. That night I sat and mounted all the pictures on to black paper and added gold and red embellishments and then got some of the decorations up.
Thursday I did all the food shopping, the rest of the decoration shopping and took Dee out to buy a new dress. (We may have brought home three, but don't tell her dad! ;)) Thursday night we finished up the house cleaning and decorating and started on some of the food preparation. (Shout out to my hubby, my mum and Lois for all the assists. I couldn't have done it without them!)
Friday arrived and everything went off without a hitch. We left the house just before 10am and I picked up a fresh orchid lei on our way to the graduation. It was easy to pick out Dee from the sea of graduates because of her sparkly blue frozen cap that her friend Shelby made her. (It was SO cute and SO her.) The ceremony was
My mom did a couple of hundred meatballs for mini-subs and I ordered 200 wings from wingers, 100 bone-in and 100 boneless in sticky sauce and buffalo. Best decision I ever made! Not only were they extremely yummy, but they took a heck of a lot of work away from me. We also prepared fruit with caramel dip, veggie and cheese platters, hot seven layer dip and chips, spinach and artichoke dip with pull apart rolls, pigs in a blanket, pinwheels, caprese salad on skewers, and frothy pink punch. It was just A.MAZ.ING. I'm so grateful to my mum for all the food she took care of for me. She is the most incredible woman and I am so blessed to have her support. Even my pops was in the kitchen helping do food! Mike ran all the errands, picking up the cake, the rolls and the wings last minute. I just appreciate my whole family and them pitching in so much.
The party was a big success. Most importantly, Dee had a wonderful time and her friends were sincerely lovely to be around. There were lots of laughs and plenty of love. It was pretty late by the time everyone left, so we did minimal clean up, just putting away any food we needed to and leaving the dishes for the morning so we could get to bed.
Saturday Mike and I cleaned the kitchen early and took down the decorations and then I finally caved to my exhaustion and literally spent the entire rest of the day and night in bed... napping, watching TV, napping, watching TV, napping... you get the picture. I probably slept more than half of the day, but I don't even care... it was completely worth it.
Congratulations Dee!!! I'm so proud of you baby girl. :)
Here's a little glimpse in to her beautiful day:
Here's a little glimpse in to her beautiful day:
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