A Great Celebration

Some of you may know that about 2 1/2 years ago, I came home to my husband with a crazy idea that I'd like to sell our house.  My reasoning was to have a better situation for our girls in the not-so-distant future.  We lived about 35 minutes away from their current school, friends, and after school activities. I knew in just a few short years our oldest daughter was going to be driving (gasp!) and the thought of her driving on back country roads, 40+ minutes to school, during Michigan winters, wasn't exactly my idea of a good situation.  It took some tough conversations between the two of us, but he eventually hopped on the "moving" train. We set a target date to be moved before our oldest daughter went to Middle School.

We put our house up for sale, the one we'd bought just before we got married, put an addition on, brought our babies home to, and made many, many great memories.  It wasn't an easy decision at all, and there were several times I'd considered ditching the whole idea, and just staying put.  But, we didn't. We put our faith and future in God's hands and trusted in His plan for our family.

While going through the initial stages with our realtor and general contractor, both long-time friends of the family, I sent out a text.  It said, "If we can make this dream a reality, we'll celebrate on a Saturday in the fall in Ann Arbor." Because, after all, is there a better time or place to celebrate?!  I think not.

We finally saw His plan for us and we moved into our beautiful, brand new home on August 25th, just four days before our oldest daughter started Middle School. It was time to celebrate.

What initially was going to be a small celebration and thank you, turned into a rather large, extravagant display of my husband's culinary prowess.   We had over 50 people and a five course menu that would put any seasoned "eater" into a food coma. We had 48 hour Rubens, prime rib w/ au jus and horseradish creme, BBQ pulled pork, shrimp and grits with blue crab gravy, and s'mores on a stick. And that doesn't even include the three side dishes.  Many of you are probably wondering how we pulled this off in the middle of a golf course out of the bed of a truck, and to be honest, I don't know.  But we did, with the help of many, and one amazing chef.

To top it all off, Michigan came away with a convincing win to open the Big 10 season and some momentum for the upcoming challenges that lie ahead.

Go Blue!
~Bekki

Pick Six comments from the tailgate:
1. "How do you not weigh 500 pounds with a husband that's a chef?" Answer: He's never home to cook, he's always cooking for other people.
2. "I bet your kids are disappointed when you cook." Nah, they're used to it, we eat spaghetti with Ragu' just like everyone else.
3. "I want to marry that blue crab gravy." I had no comment, just giggled.
4. "I'll pay you a million dollars to teach me how to make those grits." I'll let you pay him a million dollars to teach you, and you can even learn in my kitchen.
5. "Who else has prime rib and jumbo lump crab at their tailgate?" Mmmm, probably not many.