Leaving Lubbock: Part 1

I'm a little bit behind with this "series" of posts. Ok, probably more than a little bit, considering we've been here in The Woodlands for nearly two weeks. And the party I write about in this post was held a little over a week before we left. But have you ever moved before??? It's busy! And exhausting! So that's my excuse for being so far behind.

Our wonderful friends in Lubbock threw us the neatest little going away party two weekends before we left town. We are so, so very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends in Lubbock. If only they could have all come with us to The Woodlands! We already miss them all so much. There's lots of pictures in this post...you'll have to forgive me! And even at that, there's so many wonderful people who aren't pictured that were there that I wish we had paused and taken pictures with! Here we go...

The hostesses put together the best food buffet ever...filled with our favorite Lubbock-only foods! What a great idea!

The lady that made our wedding cakes is the best baker ever. We've ended up turning to her for cakes to celebrate all occassions so having a Kerry-cake at our going away party was the perfect touch.

Kolbe was beside himself when I told him we weren't going to be blowing out candles on this cake. But Mom! All cakes are supposed to have candles! So Miss Erin scrounged up a few and we sang "Say Goodbye to Kolbe" and let him blow out the candles.

And of course Rudy had to have his turn too.

Andy and John got in on the festivities...and Joe was clearly having the time of his life in the background!

Hopefully we'll be reuniting with this sweet couple (Conner...er, Collin...and Anna) this summer for their wedding in San Antonio.

Girl buddies- Erin, Karen, and me...starting to work the pregnant full-face.

This absolutely had to be documented--Kinsey actually let Mark hold her! It's a first!

Because Dave lived with us for most of Kolbe's first year and a half of life, these two are the best of friends. It will be hard to be away from "Uncle Dang."

Us with the Bergmans...(how fair is it that my husband is about fourteen shades tanner than I am!?! Not at all!!!) I'm going to miss my dear cousin/stay-at-home-mama confidant, Mandi. Thank God for text messages!

Ever since Kolbe was a baby he's been attached at the hip to "Uncle Bean." He adores him. And to me, this picture of these two shows it all.

See! He and Rudy both think Ben is the coolest!

Baby John was about to get in his jammies and had never experienced crawling on a cold tile floor. He had to bear crawl it to the carpet as fast as possible!

And then spend some time laughing at his godfather, Uncle Marky.

Lubbock has been heavily populated by Hefferlys since Mike's arrival in 1999. Twelve years later the total drops from what was once five to now only two. And give it about two more years and I think we'll be extinct.

I love Uncle Dave!

Me too!

Us with our dear friends, the Johnsons...weekends will be lonely without yall!

And the last crew standing at the end of the night! Seriously...this was around midnight and we still managed to get a fairly good shot with the camera propped on the counter!



We loved our special little going away party and feel so blessed that God gave us such a wonderful extended family to experience the first years of our married life with in Lubbock. These are the people we love and our children love and we will miss them terribly.