So you have decided to have a party, now to get planning. That leads to the first big question.....where do I start? About a year ago, we were in that exact same spot. We knew we wanted to throw a graduation party for our oldest son but we also considered making it a going away party since he was leaving for the Navy shortly after graduation. We decided to make it a graduation/see ya soon party (we knew Boot camp was only 8 or 9 weeks and he would only be about an hours drive from us.).

The first two things we did was decide where to hold it and the date of the party. In our case, we had to decide between our house, a friend or family members house or a local park. Our house and yard are fairly small so that eliminated that option for us. We really liked the idea of doing it at a friend or family members house but eliminated them because the friends were going to be having a party soon and the family members house was about a 45 minute drive from our town. So we decided on a local park with a shelter. For us, the date was based on the availability of the park.

Our next big decision was to theme or not to theme. Because of it being a combination party, we decided we wanted to theme it in his school colors as well as blue & gold for the Navy. We did the decorations in the same colors. There was even separate cakes for each theme.

After that we had to figure out who to invite. This was pretty easy but the list got to be pretty long. We knew we had the room because of the park too. We invited over 80 kids & adults and about 60-65 of them showed up. That doesn't count his friends that he just told to come either. I don't have any idea how many of them showed up.

I think the hardest part for us was the menu. The party was on a Sunday at 1:00pm so knew we were going to be doing a lunch. We walked around our local members only food club and figured it out. In all, it took us a few hours of roaming around there to come up with the complete menu. It consisted of burgers (grilled the day before), hot dogs, salads (potato, coleslaw & fruit), chips, tortilla chips & salsa, veggie tray, baked beans and of course plenty of pretzels-. Not to mention the toppings for the burgers - lettuce, tomatoes, onions & cheese. We had some help with some of the dishes but we did most of the prep work. We also had beverages of all sorts....adult and kid friendly. I talked about the cakes before, those we had made by the bakery at the local food club place.

The easiest part of the whole process? When it was all done!! No, I'm kidding, the easiest part was the actual party. We enjoyed it tremendously! All of our hard work had come to fruition and we were spending time with all of our guests. There was still some work to do but it wasn't a lot or very often.

Here is a list of the steps for those that like lists.

1. Location & Date
2. Theme
3. Who to invite
4. Menu
5. Enjoy!

Speaking of lists, a friend of ours recently held a graduation party for her daughter and she said "List everything and check it off as you go. It will be a life saver!" So if you like lists, I suggest you do that!

We have been asked a few times how we came up with our logo. In all honesty, we didn't! Our good friend Matthew Leonard designed it. He realized that a pretzel sort of looks like two D's together and drew it up like that for us. We fell in love with it as soon as we saw it.  The next step was to decide on colors.

Our families have had a history of serving in the United States Navy. Both of us have at least one grandfather, both of our dad's, Tom's sister, brother in law & cousin all served and our son is currently serving as an Engineman overseas. We decided that we wanted to honor all of them and chose Blue and Gold for the colors.

The tag line was the hardest part. Matthew had suggested a bunch of different ones. Tom really liked one in particular and Sheri really liked a different one. We couldn't come to an agreement so we decided to let our Facebook Fans decide for us. We posted them both without saying who liked which one and let the voting begin. Much to Tom's surprise, his favorite "Gourmet snacks you’ll love!" didn't receive even one vote.