Good Bye Party

Penny has been gone for a day, impossible as it seems!!!  I will write more on that later, but for now, I wanted to put up some pictures from her goodbye party.  We had a backyard BBQ party on Saturday and invited a pile of people from the neighborhood, school, and friends and family to come and say good bye one last time. Penny decided to cook Thai food for everyone, so she made her awesome green curry and Suki noodles (which I am going to MISS like CRAZY!).  In addition, we had hot dogs, potato and macaroni salad, a pineapple peach casserole, shrimp dip, french onion dip, crackers, and chips.  The piece de resistance, as far as Penny and her girlfriends were concerned was the chocolate fountain I set up—something I had left over from my sister’s wedding and which I LOVE to pull out as often as I can, which thus far as been my sister’s wedding, Leah’s welcome to the family party, and now Penny’s good bye.  Penny had so much fun choosing the dippers for the fountain, but ultimately we decided on pound cake, cheese cake, pretzels, strawberries, bananas, brownies, and rice krispies treats. 

We also found out that Walmart had a 1 hour banner printing service, so we had a special banner printed up for her and she decided to ask everyone to sign it.  We also had a table set up with cards and stickers and stuff so that everyone could make her a card to go in a photo album.  Both were a great success and she got a lot of beautiful sentiments from both.

The party started at 6pm, and we had about 30 people or so over.  Penny’s best friends all came, so we had a lot of squealing and giggling that lasted till nearly 11pm, when it turned to tears and hugs and promises to keep in touch.  There’s not much else to say, so I’ll just post pictures of Penny with everyone for you to enjoy, and make comments as appropriate underneath each one.  When I can even think about it without tearing up, I’ll write a post about D-Day, the day she left!

 The assembled crowd
 
We made Penny give a little speech.  She said, “I know I’m not gonna have such a great year without everyone here.”

With our friends, The Harrisons

With JB, who was her homecoming date, and his dad, Dave.  They live just up the street from us.
 
With our neighbors, the Summers family.  Baby Fred was born while Penny was here and she was able to hold him when he was only 6 hours old.  Lisa attempted to turn Penny Greek by feeding her lots of stuffed grape leaves and teaching her to make Greek New Year’s Bread this year.

Our neighbors, Sherri and Mark.  We recently became friendly with them and they are very interested in going to Thailand and loved getting to know Penny.
  
Penny with my brother-in-law Lucas, nephew “Chunk”, dearest friend Joe, sister Judy, and niece “Dot Dot”

Penny with our friends, the Tompkinses.  Kristine and I were co-workers when I was still working.

Penny was so happy, she decided to dance.

Penny with some of our best friends, Melissa, Emily, and Andy

Penny and Emily

Penny with our dear friends and frequent dinner dates, the Kosnoskis

Penny with the Blind Guy Squad, Andrew Tompkins and Mike

An awesome picture of us with our girl

Penny and her girlfriends Taylor, Lesley, Charlie, Chrissy, and Beth

Penny and our friend Cindy

The girls enjoying the chocolate fountain.  They were starting to get silly and Dot wanted out! :0D

Thanks to everyone who came, and to those who sent their sentiments along who were unable to make it.  It was a special day for Penny and I know she felt so loved and so special!