WillowBridge is a Whole Year Old!

Last year on October 17th (according to my Shuffle recap), Ryan and I spent part of the evening (a Thursday) at church beginning the setup for a women's event - my first one to oversee as the leader of the women's ministry. We got all the tables and chairs moved into one of the rooms, and I made a special note that I ran the chair dolly and didn't lose ANY of the stacks of chairs. We put all the linens on the tables and started decorating vendor tables with signs and baskets. Ryan finished up his part of the setup before I did, told me to stay as long as I needed, and went home to cook dinner for us. For this, and for his work every day of the year, I granted him husband of the year award. 

We had no idea, as we rolled round tables and dollied chairs and fluffed linens - that 100 miles away from where we stood, a renovated office-turned-apartment building was guarding a group of team and tenants for the first time ever. That was the night WillowBridge was born. As I facilitated that big fall event in the days after October 17th, I had no idea that in one year, I'd be planning a first birthday party for a place I didn't even know existed. I had no idea I wouldn't be leading the SHE Team anymore or that we wouldn't even be at that church or in that town anymore. 

I actually didn't know the official birthday until after I planned the party, so it was more of a "WillowBridge turns one this month" sort of party, but you can know it is now securely marked on the calendar so we celebrate properly in years to come!

Of course we got a cake...

...and decorations...

Ryan requested party hats, so we got those too.

Tim, Justine, and Isla liked them too!

Our picture was a bit skewed by the party props:

I wanted a picture with Justine, because believe it or not, we didn't have ANY yet of just the two of us!

And, of course, a group photo for the win:

In our increased clean eating, desserts are mostly gone from our house. I had been waiting for this cake and ice cream for two weeks. One of my friends said I looked deliriously happy about it. It's no lie. 

I. Savored. Every. Bite.

Meanwhile, Ryan and Tim were on baby duty:

It was a pretty informal night. We gathered around the table, ate cake and ice cream, and told random stories. 

A low key celebration that was much smaller than we planned (hello, pandemic) - but no less filled with gratitude for what God has done over the past year!

Happy birthday, WillowBridge!