Farewell dinner

 It's astonishing what a few cardstock circles hung from the chandelier can do for a room... 

Tonight we had our farewell dinner for David, Sky, Eff, and Lala.  Although they don't move into their new apartment up in the Salt Lake Valley until Saturday, the three kids are leaving tomorrow afternoon to spend the week with their maternal grandmother.  Somehow, the kids latched onto the idea of having a good-bye party, and tonight was the best night to do it.

After decorating the dining room with the aforementioned circles, I set the table with my best dishes and nicely folded napkins.  Each plate had four starburst candies, and three glow sticks to play with when it got dark.  The goblets (sooo fancy, Em and Lala decided) were filled with apple juice and pebbled ice, quite the delicacy.  (At one point during dinner, Em held her glass aloft and said, "A toast for the Tobler kids!"  Where did she even get that?  It was hilarious.)

 These circles spell "goodbye", except they kept flipping around in the breeze from the fan.

The seven older kids of the cousin summer

The actual dinner was a moderate (as ever) success, but the sheer joy of having a "party" smoothed out any sadness over the meal choice.  We "topped" off their juice glasses as necessary, gave extra generous amounts of jello, and had numerous cookies for dessert.

It was messy, loud, loving, and fun:  A perfect endpiece to our cousin summer.