Our See You Soon Fiesta

I've decided I don't want to say good-bye to friends and family nor do I like the sound of Going Away, as in our party yesterday, so I've now titled it "Our See You Soon" fiesta. We had such a great day and tons of friends came out to wish us well on our new adventure. It meant a lot to see so many special people there: Erin, Tony, Toby, Kate & Andy, Elizabeth, Sierra & Mike, the McCarthy's, the Rauh's, Lisa & Kylie, Eric Do, Thien & Brenda, the Wongs, Katherine & her sons, Brenda & Clay, Dan & Diane, Wes, and a ton more of our friends and family. A lot of Shawn and Thane's co-workers also came out to say hey, which was really nice of them. Of course, there were some tears shed. Actually, lots of tears on my end. I told Shawn I felt like I cried more than Kristi. Darn it, I was hoping she'd be the emotional wreck yesterday. Ha ha. We got some special gifts yesterday, starting with the one from Jason. He made Kristi and I photo albums documenting our 7 years as friends. I had a feeling he might do something like that and initially when I say the package I thought maybe he just framed a couple pics or made us a new digital pic, but once I saw the Mac box I knew exactly what he had done. The book is awesome!!! It's one of the best gifts I've ever received, even though it started the waterworks for me. Then Jason's mom, Diane, also referred to as Grandma Di, got us webcams, so, as she said, she can see her granddaughters grow up. That totally made me cry. Diane is like a mom to us and to hear her say that about Avery and Inara made me super sad. And it of course made me think of my mom and being away from her. Jason's dad, Tom, also got the girls a little gift: these super cute monkey plates. The Turnbaugh's are more like family to us and I'm going to greatly miss the 3 of them. My next big cry came when Thien and Brenda gave us their gift. Thien wrote Shawn and I a letter thanking us for our friendships and sharing how much we mean to him. He framed the letter with a few pictures of us through the years. While we don't get to see Thien much since he moved to Vegas, he's still one of our best friends and we'll miss him and Brenda a lot too. My last big cry came when I was saying good-bye to everyone. It was especially hard when I saw Greg and gave him a hug. Greg is like a brother to me and I'm going to REALLY miss him and all the fun things we used to do together, like bagels and fraps on football Sundays. It's really hard now that he's going to be a dad. I wish we could be here to share that with him. I sure hope he gets to come visit us at least once before the baby comes. Ugh! Moving is so hard because of the "see you soon's". It's only going to get worst. I've got two more days that I'm going to spend with my girlfriends and I know that's going to be super hard for me. I better go stock up on Kleenex this week. It's going to be a rough two weeks. Thanks again to everyone for coming to the party yesterday. WE LOVE YOU ALL!!!