Mom and Dad's Anniversary Party

Despite the sadness I still feel, we had a great time this evening celebrating 40 years of marriage for my parents. They rented a building (Thank GOODNESS for air conditioning! It was over 100 degrees!!) and we had lots of good food and fun with so many people! Nearly all of my Wichita family was there. There were only two cousins who were missing, and my two aunts (Marilyn, I hope your elbow is healing and not tooo painful. Patty, you should have skipped your camping trip, it's too hot out there anyway! ;o)) and their husbands. One cousin had a good excuse, she had a baby this morning! (Congratulations Kym and Jesse, I can't wait to see pictures of Layne!) The other one, I'm not sure where he was...but anyway, it was wonderful to see everyone else. Lots of Mom and Dad's friends came to show their love and support. I tried to get a good picture of Mom and Dad, but he couldn't stop talking long enough to smile!

One of my cousins who I haven't seen in probably at least 3 years was there, but it felt like we had just seen each other last week. She has a blog, and it's been so wonderful to keep up on each other's lives even though we don't see each other or even talk on the phone...it was SOOO good to see you Loni! Let's not let another 3 years go by!! I want to see that little girl in your tummy when she's still a baby! :o)

As we were chatting with my cousins, we realized that all of us girl cousins were there (except Kym, but we figured we would let it slide) so we wanted a picture. As we got all together, Loni and I started looking around. So, why are 4 of them so tall and blond, and then there are Loni and I, not so tall and absolutely NOT blond? Well...looking at the picture, some of the blonds are more blond than others! :o) Go figure...Oh, well...we'll love them anyway, won't we??!! :o) The tall blond with short hair directly behind me just found out that she is expecting her second child in the spring, Loni is expecting her 3rd little girl in November, and Kym had a baby today...The family just keeps growing and growing! My grandparents have 12 grandchildren and 16 great-grands (with two more coming soon!).

There was this fun heart/love confetti on the tables, and the kids (ok, Dad {MY DAD} started it) would lick the confetti and stick it to their faces. They kept telling us that they were their tattoos! How funny!

Here is Bethany with her two youngest cousins...they just LOVE being together! They have SO much fun! (Oh, look, now Dad is smiling!)

I just wanted to put a few of these pictures up so everyone can see my awesome family.