I hope everyone has been well! I apologize for the hiatus. Last week, I had taken some time off to spend with my parents leading up to Christmas. And, as detailed in the last post, things have been very busy around here as of late. Luckily today is a fairly slow day, so I can settle back into the mix and tell all of you how awesome the Christmas party/open house was the other week!
Setting up for the event wasn’t too much of a hassle. We had put up the Christmas decorations and whatnot a couple weeks in advance so there wasn’t a scramble to make everything festive at the last minute. I suppose most of the prep work has been going on since November, with cleaning out the upper barn and decorating the white house and all that jazz. The whole event felt like a more laid-back Bluegrass and Burgers, which was nice.
I was stationed down with the bunnies and goats. There was a large wave of guests in that area when the party first began. But thirty minutes in, the majority of them had trickled up to the white house. There was actually about a twenty minute gap where it was just Xena and me chilling outside the Red Barn. Xena was purring up a storm, content with being my primary focus as we waited for more guests.
About an hour into the event, things picked back up down by the bunnies and goats. A second wave of visitors came as the first group was coming back down. It was really refreshing to have activity again. I was both pleased and surprised with how huge the turnout ended up being. The goats loved the attention and were rock stars (as always). And the bunnies did a great job tolerating having so many people wanting to pet and hold them. There were a lot of cute pictures taken of kids holding the bunnies.
The relaxed nature of the event allowed me time towards the end to offer my parents a tour around the property. My mom is a weekly volunteer, but my dad had not been out for several months. I was excited to show him just how much the Barn has grown and to introduce him to all the amazing people who have made such a transformation possible. Being able to share all of that with him was sincerely one of the proudest and happiest moments of my adult life.
All in all, the party was a big success! All the guests seemed to enjoy themselves and were happy to see how the Barn’s growth. We raised a nice amount of money, though we still have a ways to go to reach our year end goal. Every little bit of support in this final week of the year means so much to us! We appreciate all the support and love everyone has given us this year and are excited to share that love and support with all of our kids in 2017!
-Connor