the party that almost wasn't...

Oh, the drama of my life!! (Although, I do realize that this particular day that out of everyone involved, I was one that experienced the least amount of drama !!)
I had been bragging all this past week about how prepared I was for Sawyer's birthday party...uncharacteristically prepared admittedly, but nonetheless prepared.
Out of all the events that I have ever planned, I honestly think that this was the first time that I wasn't up until 2AM, the morning of the party, making a shirt, baking a cake, or doing something else ridiculous that should have been completed days or weeks earlier.
Sawyer's party was planned to start at 12:30. A little before noon, my sister Tami (who was coming from Nashville) called and said that they were about 30 miles away, but they might be a little late, because the sky looked really bad, like a big storm was coming. Fifteen minutes later she called back and said that traffic was completely stopped and that they were closing the interstates due to flooding, but not to worry, they would just figure out another route to make it the last little bit. Well, three attempted alternate routes, and 6+ hours of waiting it out...it never got any better and they had to turn around and go home!! YUCK!! We were so sad that they didn't get to be here, but we are very thankful that they finally made it out of the stinking storm and back home safely!
My mother-in-law and her sister also got stuck in the same mess and also had to wait it out. Finally, they ended up going to Louisville, getting a hotel room and then eventually making it here on Sunday! Hooray! We were all so happy when they finally made it!
My other sister, Tanya and her family came down on Saturday morning and they were closing the highway right behind them. Luckily, they made it by the skin of their teeth. Because of the flooding though, they had to leave earlier than planned to beat the cresting of the rivers so that their girls could leave for camp the next day. They had to travel around the world, but they eventually made it home safely too!
And to beat all of that Jill (Brian's sister who lives less than 10 miles from us) called around noon and said that they couldn't make it out of their neighborhood, so they didn't know if they would be able to make it!! They eventually did make it over for a little while later in the afternoon though.
Fortunately, my parents had come on Friday, so they didn't have any problems coming or going, so at least Sawyer will have two family members who won't look back on his first birthday and want to shoot us!!!
Anyway, back to the (pointless) preparedness...it was 12:15, we had the food grilled, the cake out, we were all ready for the party, but most of our guests were stranded elsewhere!! We went ahead and ate thinking that we would just do the cake thing after a few hours when SURELY they would have made it through the last 30 miles...yeah, well...we were wrong.
We FINALLY got to finish our party on Sunday. Although the situation was definitely less than ideal, Sawyer had a great time, and we feel very blessed that all of our family made it home and are safe and sound!
Here are some pictures of Sawyer's party...