Farewell Lunch

Today my mom friends invited us to a farewell party lunch. Being the first Thursday of the month, FIK had a half day. We went to a fancy restaurant downtown. This place was fancy enough to have tatami everyway and all waitresses in kimono. We had our own banquet room, which was a good thing, because the kids were absolutely wild! They took one look at the room and promptly turned it into a gym- they were doing cartwheels & tumbles, climbing on chairs, and chasing each other around like hooligans!

Lunch was fancy, but delicious. Catie only ate the fried chicken and fruit off her kids meal, but I wasn’t about to complain.

Catie's kid meal

My lunch, complete with individual mushroom nabe pot (cooking on the upper left)

After lunch things calmed down a little bit...

 

 

 

The only damper on the whole afternoon was my own cultural faux pax. An unfortunate miscommunication caused me to think that more people would be there than I’d originally expected. In reality only our closest friends were there, as I’d originally believed. Unfortunately, because I thought there were going to be others present, I have been handing out farewell gifts quietly all week! I should have just brought them all to the party, given a speech, and then handed them out. I was sad to have made such a mistake with these friends, but I hope that the notes I wrote and the gifts speak for themselves. I’m going to miss these ladies so much!