We had Pivecfest on Saturday, also known as an Open House to celebrate Katie's graduation.  

This was a summer packed with milestone events, starting last May, when we went to New Orleans for her graduation.  That was a fun weekend, and set the pace for the months ahead.  Both Jay and I have brother's who turned  50 this year, my Dad turned 80 and of course, my youngest sister got married.  We also have some friends from the west coast who were in town for a while.  In short, I don't think I've ever been to so many off the rails parties in one summer since 1981. 

Jay is tired.  Too many late nights.  I assured him that for Katie's party, we would solve that problem by starting it at 3:30 in the afternoon.  It would be over by, oh, seven at the latest.

After a summer long string of perfect (sometimes a bit hot) weather, Saturday dawned dark and rainy.  Jay moved the grill into the garage and we continued as planned.  After all, no matter what some people like to believe, we can't do anything about the weather.  We served brats, chips, grapes and bars.  All finger food, no cutlery at all.

During the afternoon, Katie was helping me set out platters of bars.  I had made brownies, coconut bars, fudge krispies, chocolate chip bars and peanut butter krispies.

"What if no one comes?" she asked me.  "We can never eat this many bars!"

That's when I started to hope no one would come.

They came.

Rain or not, they came.

And they stayed.

It eventually evolved into three parties.  The garage was full of men smoking cigars, the tv room was full of women drinking wine and the living room was full of kids dancing.  Zack had a bunch of friends over who wound up spending the night.  One later told Zack that it was the funnest night of the summer.

The last revelers left around 11:00, which doesn't seem late until you remember the shindig started almost eight hours earlier.

It was really fun.

Now I just want to sleep until school starts.