Feel Good Friday- There's a Party Goin' on Right Here

I don't know where the button went, I swear it's in my HTML but I don't see it here.

It's time once again to play Feeeel Goooooood Friiiiidaaaaaaaay!

If you've never been to Feel Good Friday land, it was created by thegirl who is on hiatus, so she entrusted her dear meme to me. 

To participate, you sit yourself down and think about what made you happy this week and tell us about it.  It can be earthshattering or something as day making as you got a valentine from your 4 year old nephew.  It can be one thing or a bunch.  I usually pick 5 things, but it's up to you!

There used to be a Mr. Linky linkup that went with Feel Good Friday, but I didn't get many people linking up, so I'm linky free for the moment.  Just go write your own Feel Good Friday moment on your blog, come back here and leave a comment and we'll be over to check you out really soon.

Today, I'm just going with one thing.

We've never been much of party kind of family.  We never had those yearly Christmas parties of legend, where someone would get drunk and dance on the table, or stand under the mistletoe with the wrong wife.

We didn't do the annual cook-out where the men did all of the grilling and beer drinking and the women made all of the salads while kids played on the Slip n Slide.

Birthday parties were mostly our family and grandmother and then sometimes a kid party, depending on our age.  But, unlike many families, we still do all get together for someone's birthday and have a cake.  I've heard that in my families, that is UNHEARD of by the time a person is the age I am.  We don't have a lot of routines, but that is still one of them.  And my sister e-ster can't have dairy, so she has a birthday pie.  And my mother still gets those big, fat number candles but sometimes we don't have the right numbers, so we have to add skinny ones.  K-ster's family still does this, so I don't think it's so unusual.

My parents do have what many consider a great house and yard for a party.  Perfect for cookouts.  We used to be obsessed in my family with The Guiding Light, the longest running soap until it was cancelled a couple of years ago.  On this show, there was the annual Bauer Barbeque.  Nothing good EVER came out of the Bauer Barbeque, but it was the theme throughout the summer.  Even when people were divorced and lost the house and died and were feuding, somehow, there would always be THE BAUER BARBEQUE.

So, since this picture was taken, we've had one every summer. Yep that was the summer my father became an axe murderer.  And we were all very supportive, as you can see, encouraging him in his new plan.  For his retirement party, we had a band and a tent and a pretty festive time.  People said we should do this more often.

The W girls said, it should be like the Bauer Barbeque!

Since then, we've had something every summer.  Same people, same yard, various reasons for coming (birthday party, just a cookout, wedding- that was a big one and required some yard transformations on that one, retirement).

And this summer, we're doing my parents' 40th anniversary.  It will look surprisingly the same as this one because the same band will come and play and we have the same tent. Lots of the same people.  And the trucks have all disappeared and there will be plenty of room for parking again.

It's amazing how having a party can make things get cleaned up and disappear.

I don't know what it is about a tent that makes people so happy.  But happy, they are.  My sister and her husband and l-ster all got here to enjoy the festivities.  It should be a good time.  And I have something crafty up my sleeve but I can't talk about it because spies read my blog and might tell, so I'll have to share them next week!

Now go write your own feel good friday post and come back and leave a comment so we know where to go!