As I’m writing this, the leaves are falling outside, the sun sets earlier and we’ve had several rainy days. Fall is a beautiful season, but this post is a little throwback to a sunny and warmer celebration this past summer.
My family hosted a large beach potluck in July to celebrate three events: my sister’s birthday, her graduation from high school, and my graduation from nursing school (it was a very busy year for us haha!). We invited many of our relatives and friends – close family-friends, school friends, childhood friends and so on – which made for a big (and loud) celebration.
My family and I don’t usually host big parties. When we were planning for this event, we were stressing about the quantity of dishes we would have and the different activities we would prepare for the guests. It all worked out in the end, as a number of our friends contributed their own dishes for the day. One of our Titas (Aunts) has a baking business, and baked this beautiful and delicious basketball-themed birthday cake for my sister. It looked too good to eat!
A few of our friends brought their own games as well. We spread out our picnic blankets and sat in the sun playing slap-jack, spoons and exploding kittens.
Sometimes you don’t realize how much you miss someone (or several someones) until you see them after so many days, months or years, and all these memories start flooding back. There were many guests that played such a pivotal role in the lives of my sister and I – some took care of us as kids while our parents had work, some acted as mentors, others were dear childhood friends that we used to see every weekend. While there were definitely some tears shed, it was still a joyful and fun day.
Ahhhh how exciting!! This looked like a lot of fun – congrats to you and Krystle for such a memorable and exciting year! Can’t wait to see your successes unfold 💖
Thank you for all the love and support lola! <3
Sounds like you had a great day and overall great year so far! What a lovely group, and what the heck is EXPLODING KITTENS?! That sounds hella dangerous, haha 😉
It was truly wonderful! And Exploding Kittens is this strategic card game (basically everyone takes turns drawing from a deck of cards, or using action-cards, with the goal to avoid drawing an exploding kitten card. But you can play a card that targets another opponent so they draw the kitten and get them out of the game!) I’m terrible at explaining, but it’s so fun and I recommend it : )
This looks and sounds like it was a lot of fun! I can’t get over how beautiful that cake looks. And congrats to both you and your sister!
x Kara | http://karascloset.net
Thank you Kara! 🙂 Yes, I didn’t want to eat a slice of it haha
Aww you captured great pictures of the day that really represents how much fun you guys had. It looked like a nice day as well! Thanks for sharing your summer memories with us!
\\ Des | https://www.itsbetterinheels.com
Thank you, it was so wonderful seeing our dear families and friends! Thank you for stopping by 🙂
I love the family get-together! There was so much to do from your end during the party! Your family is so cute, hehe. Glad all of you had a great time overall, especially with the tasty food. Happy birthday to your sister!
Nancy ♥ exquisitely.me
YES – we don’t usually host, so we were all super frantic leading up to the big day haha! thanks Nancy! 🙂
I love big get-togethers and reunions like this one!
they’re so much fun!
The cake is so cute! Congratulations to you and your sister for graduating and a happy birthday to her! I love family gatherings and how fun it is to get everyone together.
Mai
✰ maidoesthings.com
Thank you so much Mai! 🙂