The older I get, the more I find that I have to be very purposeful with building and maintaining relationships and friendships. It seems the days of easily connecting with people (without much intention) are long gone. Connecting with others is important to Chris and me, and this is one of the primary reasons we have several annual events that we host or help facilitate.
Of all the gatherings we participate in, our Backyard Back-to-School Bash has become one of my very favorite. I love to host, and having a yard full of people who are visiting, laughing, and connecting makes me happy. Now that we've hosted this for three years, we've really seen some friendships blossom among people who either met or interacted for the first time at our event. That is very rewarding to us, and it encourages us to keep hosting it!
This year, we planned our Backyard Back-to-School Bash for the evening of Friday, August 9th. The last two years, we've had great weather for our gathering despite it being the middle of August. I was afraid that our luck had run out this year, as it poured rain all morning on the day our event was scheduled. The forecast called for the rain to stop around 11:00am, but it continued to come down until 2:00pm. Chris and I tossed around several options . . . cancelling, postponing, and even just having the event despite the rain, but ultimately decided that we would postpone to the following week if necessary. We were very relieved when the rain finally stopped, and we made the decision to forge ahead with the original plan!
It's kind of funny to me to think back to the first year we hosted this gathering, and how I was nervous about who to invite or if anyone would even want to come. Each year, we've invited several families that we've never hung out with before, and each year we've been happily surprised at how receptive those families are to our invitation. We allow the kids to really compose most of the guest list, but this year I had to pull the reins back a little on who all they wanted to invite. I love that our kids want to have people over and invite a crowd, but I don't want to get too carried away with how many people we have over at a time. This year, we invited around 65 friends, and had 53 people (including 29 children) attend. While we loved the crowd, I did feel that we were close to the maximum number of people we could host comfortably.
For my records, this is a list of those who were able to be with us: Mom, Dad, Russ, Lisa, Chloe, Ross, Tia, Sadie, Caroline, Antha, RyAnn, Raelyn, Mark, Anna, Gavon, Blake, Jason, Shana, Zack, Jordyn, Brant, Lana, Avery, Jade, Delaney, Landon, Kristen, Braydon, Ashlyn, Ryan, Kara, Joshua, Julianna, Nicole, Ethan, Madelyn, Paul, Rebekah, Hayden, Avery, Charley, Jason, Amanda, Judah, Abi, Aryn, and Jalaam, in addition to our family.
For our menu, we provided hot dogs, chili, fritos, fruit, tea, lemonade, water, and all the supplies for s'mores. We asked all our guests to bring an ingredient for trail mix so we could set up a "Make Your Own Trail Mix" bar. These things have all worked well in the past, so I figure why change it up!?!
In the backyard, we set up an obstacle course (with improvements and additions, of course!), a game of yard darts, and a game of ring toss. The play set and play house were both available for the kids, and we had a fire going in our fire pit. We asked all our guests to bring chairs to sit outside. So again, pretty much the same (with a few additions) as we have done in the past.
Once the majority of our guests arrived, Chris said a few words, we had a prayer, then we opened up the kitchen for food and the backyard for fun!
Brooke, Brecklyn, and Brenson trying our the obstacle course
Chloe (with her trail mix), Braydon, Ashlyn, and Hayden on the play set
Brianna, Caroline, Blake, and Sadie in the play house
Ross, Tia, and Chris enjoying the fire
Raelyn, RyAnn, Antha, Lisa, and Kristen
While the big kids played, the smaller kids enjoyed FOOD!
Madelyn, Brooke, Jordyn, and Ethan
Joshua, Jade, and Avery
I loved looking down at the fire and seeing a crowd enjoying themselves!
Zack and Bren
Cute little friends!
The yard darts ended up being a big hit. We will be including these every year!
Brecklyn, Daddy, and Brooke
Gavon, Avery, Abi, Charley, and Ashlyn roasting marshmallows
Sweet Sadie enjoying a s'more
Paul, Avery, Braydon, Chloe, and Ashlyn roasting marshmallows
Brooke, Grampy, and Brianna
Chelle and Mom . . . this was the first year Mom and Dad have been able to join us, and it was great to have them!
Most of the people in this photo had never met before . . . I love watching people connect!
Abi, Brianna, and Charley
Nicole, Ethan, and Avery
Delaney and Lana
Ryan helping Brooke on the monkey bars . . . Brooke had never really met Ryan before, but she walked right up to him and asked for his help :-).
Julianna, Kara, and Joshua
Brecklyn and Brooke (living their best life with s'mores and a yard full of friends!)
Brooke, Brecklyn, and Sadie
Nicole and Madelyn
Gavon and Blake refilling their trail mix
I forgot to mention that we set up a ball pit for the younger kids. I'm so glad we did because they loved it!
Jade, Julianna, Avery, and Caroline
Julianna, Jade, Avery, and Caroline (making a run for it!)
Lisa and Chloe
The ring toss game kept some of the men entertained for a long time :-).
Ross, Russ, and Landon
Haha!
Braydon and Ashlyn
Nicole and Madelyn
G-Jo and Brianna
Instead of a craft, this year I purchased a huge back-to-school coloring sheet that we taped to a table. It worked out really well, and I don't think anyone really missed the craft.
Anna, Charley, Brianna, and Chelley
Charley and Brianna trying out the yard darts
Landon, Mark, Tia, and Nicole enjoying the fire
More ring toss action . . . Paul and Brenson
The play house always gets lots of use when we have kids over!
Caroline being swung by her Daddy
💓💓💓
Daddy and Brecklyn
Jason, Amanda, Rebekah, Mom, Lisa, Kristen, and Antha visiting
Chelley and Shana
Nicole and Chelley
More ball pit fun!
Caroline, Sadie, Brecklyn, and Brooke
Russ and Ross trying their hand at yard darts
Brenson (with a flaming marshmallow!), Judah, Ashlyn, Lana, and Avery at the fire
Chelle and Chris
Although the weather had us very nervous earlier in the day, it turned out to be a gorgeous evening. The rain had cooled things down, our yard wasn't too wet to enjoy, and the sky put on a show for us. You can see the beautiful clouds in some of the photos, but I also wanted to try and capture the amazing sunset we were blessed with that evening.
Before the party really got started - when Chris was saying a few words to the crowd - he jokingly mentioned that he wanted everyone to play safe, have a good time, and not break any bones. Well, I think he should have just left out the part about broken bones because for the first time at any of our gatherings, someone broke a bone *waaaah*. Avery P was going across the monkey bars attached to our play set when she fell off of them. She initially said her wrist hurt, but she didn't cry or make a big deal of it at all. I gave her an ice pack, and she seemed fine. A few days later, Rebekah saw her wince when she put pressure on her wrist and decided they had better have it looked at. I was soooooo sad when Rebekah told me it was broken. That's two broken wrists at our house in four months (Charley broke hers in our driveway when she crashed one of our scooters back in May). UGH. I hate that she got hurt, and I hate it even more that it happened at our house.
Everyone started heading home not too long after dark (around 9:00pm), but before they did several families helped us clean up a large part of the mess. That was so nice because that made clean-up SO much faster and easier for us the next day!
Cultivating friendships with families we don't know very well and strengthening friendships with those we already know is high on our priority list. This event helps us do both of those things! In fact, the night after we hosted this gathering, Amanda texted me and invited us over for an evening swim in their pool. They are a family who live close to us and our kids all go to school together, but before this evening we had never hung out with them before. We were thrilled to accept that invitation and continue to get to know them more.
For the most part, we felt like things couldn't have gone better this year. We look forward to hosting this event again!
No comments:
Post a Comment