About Me!

Welcome to The Gathering!

To share this space with you now after working on the site for weeks is an event worth celebrating! So WOOHOO!!! I am so so happy you are here.

If you stick around long enough (please do!) you will learn that, for me, there is no such thing as something being “too small” to celebrate. Life is more fun when celebrated! Even more so when celebrated with those we know and love.

My Story

We all attend events, people have since the beginning of time, and I grew up attending this event called PFD’s (Phelps Family Dinners). When I speak of PFD’s, picture 30-40 family members, yes, extended too, in a room, bumping shoulders, laughing, talking over one another, kids running everywhere, and all the while my papa playing his piano over the noise. This is the chaos of an event I would look forward to every Sunday after church.

As I got older, I noticed all of the work that went into making these dinners happen every single Sunday. I would watch as my grandmother cleaned the house, prepared the meal, set the table, served the food, saw that everyone was content, and then do it all over again the following week. There is no telling what else went into preparation behind the scenes. A couple summers ago, I decided to throw my own dinner party, and from that moment on fell in love with the whole process of planning and throwing an event. It also made me admire my grandmother for the work she puts in every week to make sure PFD’s happen, because let me tell you, they are quite the event!

With age, I also realized how rare it is to have the closeness that my family does. I remember the first time someone told me they had not seen their cousins in over two years, I was shocked. I saw mine every week. This made me want to invite everyone who has not experienced this closeness to our family dinners! The thought of others not being close with family saddened me, but also made me more appreciative of what I have been given. Because of what I have been given, much is expected, and I deeply desire to give people a taste of what it was like to grow up in the family I was fortunate enough to grow up in. Even outside of family, people are seeking to belong and to be loved.

One day, I hope to make this vision come to life through a business of my own, but for now this little idea of mine will exist in this corner of the internet! A little corner for us all to gather, yay!