Circle of Joy-oy-oy

It's always nice when friends come to visit and you plan a party for them so they can see everyone and you realize just how long its been since you've seen everyone who lives close by. It doesn't really make sense that you never see anyone--since they live close by, but you just don't seem to do it. Kind of like how families always get together at weddings and funerals and everyone says, "We should get together more often!" but then it never happens.

Well, we had our second Circle of Joy party last night and just as a run down: we haven't seen Amber, Joy, Matt or Cristina since the last Circle of Joy party. We haven't seen Becky since our wedding. I haven't seen Shallee since her wedding. I see Shaun every once in a while in the library. We had dinner with Marquita and Daniel just a while ago... I can't even remember the last time I saw Rebecca. I saw Andrea at her "homecoming." And my brother, well, he's my brother--I see him more often than just at funerals.

I hadn't even met Becky and Rebecca's husbands, or Amber's baby, or Cristina's fiance. Sheesh. It's just been too long.

We had the party at Andrew's parent's house because, well, our house would just be too small. When Karen asked how many people we invited, I said, "About 14."

"You know that many people?" she jabbed.

After giving it a moment's thought, I had to be honest, "No," I said, "It's just that everyone is married now so that doubles our guest list."

Apparently we only have 7 friends. And their spouses. Oh, and then children, too. I think our total count was 23 people.

It helped me realize just how different young members of our church can be. Here we are planning a party and thinking of how to entertain the children, while my non-LDS friends haven't even considered children yet. Just an interesting little difference.

Overall, I think the party was a success. Andrew worked the BBQ without overdosing on propane. Maya didn't succeed in following anyone out of the backyard. And everyone seemed to have a good time.

We had thought about playing some games, but as it turns out we were happy just to chat. After all, everyone had a lot of catching up to do. We had to go over how the newly weds met, discuss the upcoming births of children, as well as plans for after graduation, and many other interesting things that we've all done in the past few years.

Oh, we did break out the duplos for the children to play with. As you can see from the pictures, Maya got some use out of them but the two most interested were Andrew and Becky's husband, Matt. Maya was entertained for about 10 minutes, but Andrew and Matt were kept occupied for a good 45 minutes. They made a beautiful castle-store-thing.

I made this collage last night at the insistence of my husband. It was midnight...so I didn't measure anything... It was midnight...so I lost all sense of color... It was midnight...just keep that in mind.