As I mentioned a few times, we celebrated Gabbie’s Bat Mitzvah on Saturday March 25. Gabbie spoke after the regular Saturday services and then we had a lunch for which we invited all of our synagogue members, plus Gabbie’s friends from school. We also invited our family and some friends from out of town. We had a dinner on Friday night, a small party on Saturday night, and a brunch on Sunday morning for out of town guests, so throughout the weekend we had a lot going on!
Our celebrations started on Thursday morning, when we brought in donuts for the middle and upper school students at Gabbie’s school. That evening, our out of town guests started to arrive. We brought the gift bags I’d made over to the hotel where my parents and brother and his family were staying, and then Gabbie and I took a ride to the airport with our other friends to pick up our friends who came in from New York. They used to live here and our families are still close friends.
On Friday morning, Gabbie and I had some mother-daughter time at the nail salon, followed by both of us getting haircuts and our hair straightened at the hair salon! Meanwhile, Simon and Zachary were hanging out with their aunt and some cousins. Gabbie and I met Dave and a few other family members for lunch too!
Next, we headed over to the synagogue to get things set up for the party. We had Friday night dinner and Saturday lunch catered. We ordered our own flowers and did most of the table centerpieces and decorations ourselves. As an aside, we had a bit of a problem with the Sam’s Club flowers we ordered because they appeared very wilted when they arrived. We called Sam’s Club and they did not tell us that they were supposed to be like that and would open if placed in water. Instead they said they would find out if they could overnight us more. I did not want to risk that so I replaced the flowers locally. Then Sam’s gave us a hard time getting a refund because they said we did not follow care instructions! We never got care instructions! Anyway, the replacement flowers looked a lot better.
We used cards I’d ordered from Shutterfly with various pictures of Gabbie on them. The vases belonged to our caterer. Unfortunately, all of the vases and cards were discarded by the cleaning crew because we didn’t remove them quick enough after the event.
Gabbie’s friends came to help us set up. They were coincidentally all wearing the same shirt!
We bought various letters from Michaels for this decoration. The letters were not discarded by the cleaning crew, so Gabbie will keep them in her room.
We tried to take a few pictures on Friday before going to the synagogue, but we only got a few. Friday night dinner was really yummy – we had chicken, brisket, burnt ends, cole slaw, baked beans, and potatoes. Since we don’t take pictures on the Sabbath, I don’t have any from the actual event, but I do have a picture of leftovers we brought home!
The pasta salad was from Saturday lunch.
At the dinner, both Dave’s dad and my dad spoke, as did one of Dave’s sisters and my brother. Everyone said really nice things about Gabbie. On Saturday morning, we made it to the synagogue just before it started pouring rain. A lot of people were there and Gabbie got a lot of compliments on her speech. I also spoke, as did the rabbi and the president of the synagogue. For lunch we had salmon, Caesar salad, pasta salad, deli sandwiches, cholent (beef stew), and desserts. After lunch, we hung out at our house with some family members and some friends. My niece was there for awhile and she is adorable, but I was unable to take any photos of her.
At night, we had Dave’s family and a few of Gabbie’s friends over for dinner. We had pizza and snacks and we watched the video slideshow that Gabbie and I put together. I tried to include pictures of her friends who were there, and it was cute to see them seeing themselves in the pictures!
How cute was Simon in his suit? This is my niece’s husband and they are looking at Simon’s kindle.
Gabbie, Dave’s 2 sisters, and Dave.
Simon and my nephew | Zachary and my nephew.
Everyone acting crazy and dancing around the kitchen table.
My nephew, my niece’s husband, my other nephew, and Dave.
Simon is just one of the guys with his big cousins!
These three are siblings. They have another sister and a brother who couldn’t make it.
On the left are our friends who still live here and on the right are the ones that moved to NY.
On Sunday morning, the family was back for brunch and a few friends came as well. We had bagels and spreads.
Simon likes riding on people’s shoulders!
Dave and his sisters and their parents.
All the family members (all from Dave’s side – my family left early that morning).
Grandma and Dave’s sisters and Gabbie.
Gabbie and two of her cousins – they are all 1st cousins with each other!
And then everyone left and it was time to recover! Overall, I think it was successful and everyone had a good time!