Weekend of Goodbye Parties

For three days straight we had goodbye parties for my dad. He left for Iraq Sunday morning for a year over there. He is actually retired from the military but accepted a private contract to be an instructor for this monster of a machine. It is the Buffalo MCPV (or something like that). It is built to remove mines with this long robotic arm.This machine was actually in the movie Transformers. They called it the Bonecrusher. My dad bought the toy for Gunnar so he can play with it and remember grandpa. Let me tell you, this thing is so hard to transform. It makes this crazy looking "thing". It will probably stay looking like this forever.

My dad will be gone for at least a year before he can come back to the US with tax free money. He will get leave in 6 months and will probably meet my mom somewhere in Europe. My parents are both so incredibly young with no kids in the house. Neither one of them has hit 50 years old yet and they have 4 kids completely grown up. They hope to pay off the house and go on a mission for the church and built up for retirement.

Friday we had a party at my parents for family and friends. It was a lot of fun with food and music. All three of us sisters had to perform the hula. My dad loves seeing us do it. The food is always so good when everyone gets together. We were there until 1:30am.

These family pictures were taken at about midnight. If we all look a little crazy, you know why. We figured we better get this picture while we have almost everyone. The only person missing is Brent. We are usually missing Dan, my sister's fiance, because he works so much. We got lucky this time.

This picture was after the group picture. Gunnar is so obsessed with looking at every picture after it is taken. So this is what they are all doing. It looked so funny so I took a picture.

Gunnar was getting crazier and crankier as the night wore on. I think my mom went and laid down with him at about 1:15am. He was up the entire time. What a trooper.

I can't honestly remember what Gunnar was doing with my brother in law Ren. He would run to him on the couch (the area where this picture was taken) then run back and pose on the chair and then repeat it all over again. He did it like 20 times. It was pretty funny.

This is what happens when a sister takes your camera and starts taking really random pictures. I had no idea that these were on here.

Ren my brother in lawHeidi my sister taking her own self portraitMindy, my sister, looking like a complete victim of this madnessDan, my future brother in lawI seriously have no idea when this was taken. It looks aweful! :)

Friday was super fun and we always enjoy the company of everyone that was there.