Saturday, 14-March-15

Daniel is one of my best friends; we’ve climbed literally all over the world, and gone on some amazing trips.  Over the years, I’ve become very close with their family; so when his sister put together a party to celebrate 10 years of being cancer-free, I was very excited to get to party with all of them.

And since Katie is a very classy woman, the event was a very classy event.  Black tie mandatory, white tie optional.  Held in the ballroom of a nice Boston hotel, with good drinks, great food, amazing people, and intimidating dancing.

But back to the beginning… it was a good day for a fancy indoor party.  I took the T instead of driving over; it was a bit of a walk in the rain, but thanks to a rainproof jacket and a good umbrella it was nicely simple and dry.

I arrived at the Liberty right during cocktail hour – it was fun, but I’m honestly never really sure how to mingle in situations like that.  There’s only so much time, and everyone’s already talking to everyone else, and I want to talk to everyone and catch up… but it was really nice – and the open bar definitely made it quite fun!  From cocktail hour on the top floor of the hotel, we moved down the the main floor and the central ballroom – the room Katie’d reserved for the party proper.  It was a good sized room; not small, but not cavernous either.  Brian, Daniel, Erin and I got tabled together with a few other folks who I hadn’t met before, and we all hung out and chatted while dinner was set up.

And what was dinner, you ask?  Yeah.  It was amazing, that’s what it was.  Buffet style, with salmon and prime rib, and really almost everything that you could want.  Excellent potatoes, grand desserts, coffee, and yet another open bar.  Gin and tonic all around!  Everything is awesome! (Cue that song from the Lego Movie)

As dinner’s continuing, the dance floor transforms – where it originally was just a flat wooden floor, now it’s a dangerous land, full of spinning dresses and swinging high heels!  Katie and her friends are extremely skilled ballroom dancers… and getting to watch them all show off is kind of an amazing treat for the night.  I’ve gotten to see them dance at parties before, but there’s never been enough room to really spread out, from what I could tell.  Now?  Now, they have all the room they need to really show off.

Of course, the rest of us joined in on the floor too, once the good people were tired out and had slowed down a bit.  I didn’t do too poorly, and I had a lot of fun.  Which is what I’ll keep telling myself until I’m convinced that it’s ok that I’m not as good as them, hehe.

The rest of the night is spent as a party should be spent – hanging out, drinks, photobooths, photo bombs in that photo booth, and hearing about fancy proposals made.  Ohh, that?  Yep.  This wasn’t just Katie’s 10th anniversary of being cancer-free – it was also her 0th anniversary of being engaged to her now-Fiance Nathaniel.  The proposal happened off-stage (I believe Katie got pulled aside quickly), so we only got to hear the outfall from it.  Cheers, impressed noises at the ring, etc…

A great party – though now I have a wedding to look forward to… if this was impressive, I can’t imagine how much so that will be!

To quote Katie, from her invitation:

This Site will serve as the information center for the Emerald Extravaganza. If there are any questions that have not yet been answered here, please let me know and I can update!

Thanks for celebrating with me 🙂

Katie”