Giant graduation party for Abby and Aubrey

It's been a fun week in Michigan and this graduation party is the big finale. People have been preparing for this for weeks now, but more on that later.
Now that they've both graduated, Aubrey last night, Abby last week, it's time to have a party!

They're expecting hundreds of people, so they're having it at the church and renting a couple tents.

Over at the front doors.

"Welcome to our graduation party!"

There was so much preparation that went into this day. The girls made a total of 5 picture boards, completely covered in photos, and had other pictures of themselves growing up. I totally approve! Pictures are great! This center board is all photos of them growing up together.

Aubrey's boards with her family.

Plus some mementos from graduation.

That's a great banner they had printed too.

And over to Abby's side.

With items from her graduation.

The people in the kitchen were hard at work getting everything ready for our 11am start.

Where did the kids disappear to? Ah, they're in a room keeping out of the way while things are getting set up.

Do they superglue to lids on to the sterno cans? Jordan eventually muscled all of them off.

This party is going for 4 hours and invitations went out to 350 families. By a rough estimate, they were thinking ~600 mouths to feed. Instead of having it catered, they made all the main dishes from scratch. To make enough pulled pork sandwiches for everyone, both Tyler and his mom have been running smokers for days, smoking 36 pork butts and producing over 150 pounds of smoked pork. Let me tell you, the smell when you walked in was fantastic.

Round it out with 30 lbs of baked beans, 30 lbs potato salad, coleslaw, and fruit and you've got a delicious lunch.

And let's not forget about desserts.

Of course there's the cake, which Alli wanted to eat before any other lunch.

But 25 families brought additional desserts to supplement the cake. It was a ton of food and an amazing amount of variety.

Let's eat!

The kids loved it all.

Each of the tables had flowers and even more photos. Wow, where has the time gone.

The kitchen crew making sure everything was stocked and piping hot.

While the girls greeted people as they came in.

The balloons were a bit hit with all of the kids.

Hopefully we've got a couple of volleyballers in the making.

People kept showing up, so it was a good thing there was plenty of seating.

Both inside and out.

It was a great opportunity to catch up with so many people.

Barely slowing down for the entire 4 hours.

The kids making friends.

Theresa keeping everything stocked up.

Alli going back for a second plate filled with watermelon, strawberries, and pineapple. Alli - Take my picture Daddy! Can I see it?

Here's a time-lapse of the front lobby. The song, "Country Road", was what Aubrey's senior class chose.

Rain had been forecast, starting as early as 10am. Luckily for us, it held off until the last 30 minutes of the party. But when it came down, it came down hard.

Being from So Cal, we don't get to see things like this too often, so it was nice to sit and enjoy the rain.

Congratulations to Abby and Aubrey! And great job to everyone who help plan, set-up, worked the party, and cooked.