The old saying, “My how time flies when you are having fun”, is so true. It hasn’t seemed like it has been that long since my last post, but evidently it’s been close to a month. I’ll be the first to admit that putting Tommy’s birthday party together was a lot of work and a little stressful at times. However, all was a huge success and I want to thank all who came and made it so. I’ll be honest, when I first agreed to go along with this I had no idea that there would be that many people that would make the two hour trip to come to his party. So let me fill you in on a few of the details of how this party went down.
First of all, Tommy tried very hard to get me to order his party invitations from Vista Print. He only wanted 900! Where he came up with that number I will never know. Since I refused to go to that extent and expense, he proceeded to make his own and mailed small batches at a time. Not sure if that was his way of not drawing attention to just exactly how many he was getting out. When I realized what he was doing, I kind of panicked because I had gotten permission from the resort to have a pool party there, but we never discussed any numbers. Therefore, I wondered at what number would we draw enough attention that they would start turning people away. I would feel awful if someone drove all that way and then wasn’t allowed in! My next thought was, “no biggie!” I would have to know who and how many were coming because they didn’t have an address or a time, therefore, they would have to contact me first in order to find there way down there. That’s what I get for thinking! I discovered that my resourceful Tommy had taken care of those details and researched the address and included it on their invitations that he was painting and sending to everyone! Then he set his own party time. Then the final and most amazing detail he took care of was contacting as many as he could to gather RSVPs to see if they were coming! Now I was terrified! Terrified that I had lost control of the situation and had no idea how many were coming and how many to prepare for. To make matters worst, I kept envisioning this huge line of cars trying to turn into the resort and creating a traffic jam and people getting turned away by the little man at the gatehouse! Then came the nightmares of screaming mad people that made the trip and wasn’t able to come enjoy themselves! I told myself not to worry it was all going to be okay! I had given an open invitation to everyone at our church first and created a sign up sheet. From there my plan was to invite a few others that were not members of our church that Tommy would want to invite. Thanks to him, I didn’t get to that point because I was terrified that all Levy County was going to attend.
As it turned out, there were about 50 people that had said they were coming to the party. Way more than I ever dreamed of! As it turned out, the actual number ended up being about 40 people. It was a wonderful party and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. As usual things turned out perfectly and we were so thankful to all who came and made his day special.
After the party Tommy started talking about his next big birthday bash when he turned 60! I guess he has established that as his next big milestone, but I informed him that if God sees fit to leave me here on this earth that long, I assured him I would not have any desire nor gumption to plan another big party like that!
After staying at the resort for 5 nights, we came home for one day, washed clothes and packed up again. This time Tommy, Jack and I headed out to New Orleans for Jack’s best friend and our adopted son’s college graduation. Were were in New Orleans for 3 nights to celebrate that with him and then brought him back to Florida with us! Needless to say, it was good to be home! Jack, Tommy and I love to travel and we do it as much as we can, but John is a major home body and is getting worse the older he gets. We are grateful for the times that we can get him to go with us, but we know there will come a time when we probably won’t be able to get him to leave the house! Until that time, we will embrace every moment we get with him.
I went to another high school graduation Friday night and God has been speaking to me every since. There are some things that I will share with you soon regarding this, but I need to wait until he is finished with me. Pray for me as I go through this emotional time, it’s been a little rough. God is in control and I have no doubt that my faith and trust in Him will see me through!