Friendsgiving

Friendsgiving:
The celebration of Thanksgiving dinner with your friends. This usually occurs on the Wednesday before or the Friday after Thanksgiving Day, since Thanksgiving is usually reserved for family gatherings.

Thank you, Urban Dictionary, for your definition, of perhaps my new, favorite celebration with my friends. We did our Friendsgiving the weekend before Thanksgiving... its way too hard to coordinate almost 20 people around the holidays.

J&I had been preparing the house for about a week - we moved all of our furniture out of the kitchen and living room.. Yes, somehow THIS damn thing ended up not only in our bedroom, but directly next to my side of the bed... Clearly I am being punished for something.

But it was worth it - we were able to have a table long enough for all of our friends to sit at together.

So... here we go - ((please forgive the quality of the photos... hopeful that I will be a proud owner of an amazing camera sometime soon!))

Welcome to Friendsgiving!

Some of the tablescape and Bar room details...

I had everyone choose an appetizer, side dish or dessert to bring. J&I took care of the main dish - Panko Crusted Chicken Breast with Stuffing. It was my first time to make my mom's stuffing - it turned out pretty dang well considering my family doesnt use recipes.. ask for a recipe, my parents give you ingredients and tell me to just eye it... realllll helpful! haha!

We ended up with the below cheese, crackers and veggie spread, (I have no other food pictures... FAIL!)swedish meatballs, spinach artichok dip, deviled eggs, cucumber tomato salad, caesar salad, mashed potatoes, mac n cheese, aspargus, broccoli cheese casserole, cranberries, bread with spreads, gravy & the chicken! WHAT A FEAST!

((If only I had a little paint on the walls!))

Putting all of our wine corks to good use..

Pre-party pic... yes, this is the only picture of us together for the entire night..
And yes, I am aware we look weird/terrible here.

J said the blessing:

Thank You for

The Food Before Us,

The Friends Beside Us,

& the Love Between Us.

& all of our amazing guests


H&Steven

Powlo, Philip & Jenna

Raquel, Diana, J & Chris ((J with his host gift from Philip - love it))

Steven, Branden, Whit and Allison

Courtney, Christina, Ricky & Heather

Ricky & his ladyfriend, Christina

Diana!

Love these 2

Sweets time!

Busting out the Giant Jenga Scotty Potty made us!

& no Dunaway party is complete without flip cup

Whitney, Heather, Christina, Allison, Jenna, Diana, me, Courtney and Raquel

& before we can close up shop for the night, dance party must happen, complete with "Thriller"

Dont forget your take home! (S'mores Bar Kit)

My Saturday morning Facebook status, you ask?


Ashley Dunaway:
Dear Future Self,
If you are going to host grown up parties, that inevitably turn into college drinking games, it would be wise to start actually eating the dinners you make for everyone.
Thank you,
Dying Today SelfIts Saturday afternoon (around 1ish) and my status already has 9 likes and 6 comments. But my favorite comment was from Allison... "Casually having a glass of wine then all the sudden Jarrett comes yelling Flip Cup time and without question we all run into the garage!!! Then of course that turns into dance party....just another party at The Dunaways!"

Obviously a success and will definitely a new tradition among our friends. We are so blessed to surround ourselves with such great, fun people - we love yall! xoxo

Next up: Cleaning up (the not so fun part) & Christmas Decor... pics to come!