The view

This is what I am looking out on while I do my dishes today. Ahh. I love Fridays.

Hannah. New favorite quotes.

“Ah do it.”
“Ah yike it.”
“Ah Cooking!”
“Ah Mixing.”
“Yuv Yuuu!”
“Keeses.”
“Com on!”
“Taint tu.”

While watching a cartoon…
Hannah: “Funny!”
Mommy: “Is that a funny baby on the show?”
Hannah: “Funny baby.”
After a momentary pause and while brightening a bit and placing her open hand on her chest…
Hannah: “HANNAH funny!”
Mommy: “He he he he he. Yes. Hannah is very funny!”

I love that kid.

Early Halloween

We had so much fun on Monday night up at the Parent’s house. There are lots of conflicts to schedules on Saturday for the Halloween holiday, so the family decided to take Monday night to get together for dinner and then a parade of trick-or-treating kids in costume.

These are the Days of Our Lives

Coordinating schedules with the Musketeers this week has made me a bit nostalgic. I was thinking about the old days…and not just the good old days…the good old Days! Days of Our Lives! I remember walking home from Junior Highschool with the girls, anticipation for the upcoming show at a high, and talking about Bo and Hope and Steve and Kayla….being a sucker for an accent, my candy couple-of-choice was Shane and Kimberly. That Brittish boy is still a good looking man, even if he gave up steamier rolls for playing opposite the likes of Fran Drescher. Still, as much as I crushed on Steve at 11 and 12 years old, sitting here at my computer 25 years later I couldn’t remember much about their lives really. We watched these people daily for so long, and now I had no idea what happened to those fictional families. It’s not a great loss, I’m sure, but it is odd to realize that I can tell you all about the people I’ve read about in books, and even those movies that I somehow find a stolen weekend to watch…I can give you all kinds of details about those short-lived character encounters, but what about the Days of my youth? Nope. Sort of lost in the fogs of time.

As I was listening to my Playlist while doing data entry, a memory sparked. Sitting on the bus with the girls on our way to, I have no idea where, and the love song came over the radio. Aww. All of us melted! It was true love. The real forever love represented in lyrics and melody. Remember that we were 10 years old at the time, and I’m sure the fact that we probably weren’t supposed to be watching shows like that on top of the fact that we were love crazy pre-teens with random misfires of hormones who all fell in love with nearly every decent looking boy on the block, and you might understand why upon hearing that testiment to eros we got excited shivers.

Hmm…headphones on, data entry pauses…what was that song again?

I had to do a google search. After 25 years, I was a little fuzzy, remember?! AH! Friends and Lovers! Right!

I added the song to my playlist with a smile and then thought…I wonder if there’s a video? YouTube, here I come! No true video on file, per se, but so many fans of the show and the couples have created their own cliptastic videos from their favorite episodes. (Some people have way too much time on their hands!) I clicked on one and couldn’t believe the sheer volume of makeup and hair, for BOTH characters, but laughed at the memories again. Ahh…L-shaped sheets. As a marrid woman of a certain age, I’m still surprised that I don’t remember more of these scenes! If tv has only gotton worse morally over the last 25 years, I’m pretty glad that my watching is restricted to Disney and the History channel!

Why the telescope Shane? And why did Kimberly always so confused or trapped?

Another quick detour to Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_and_Kimberly

WHOAH NELLY! Murder, abuse, betrayal, intrigue, marriage, children with questionable paternity…How do I not remember any of this hooey?! He he he. Well, I guess I can see why the show has been on the air since 1965, but, MAN! I can also see how much better my life is for not continuing the teenage crushes on Steve and Patch into the new century! I’m quite happy to have glazed over the strange bits and will move on with a partial memory that cracks me up and makes me smile at the silly me of 1983.

Ahhh…the good old Days!

My girl is getting so big!

Jon and I were looking at Hannah last night and just shook our heads at how big she’s getting! Here’s a share of the new pictures of our girl.

Hannah Summer 2009

I love Phineas and Ferb!

A new favorite find of mine is a Disney cartoon that seems to be on all the time…at least…it seems to be on every random time I happen to be able to sit in front of a tv and work. I have to admit that it’s not the best ‘white noise’ sort of choice just because it’s so entertaining and clever. Still…it makes me smile!..and the commercials make great spots for me to get things done.
My favorite video of theirs to date.

It’s official…Wedding Season OVER!…and we SURVIVED!!!

The last two weeks of wedding season for us didn’t peter out, or slowly wean us from the work with fewer and fewer gigs as the dates got further along. No. We went out with a massive bang! Between the two of us, Jon and I did seven weddings in two weeks…some of those overlapping and some of them solo…but seven in two weeks. Ack! (Yes, I had a mental break during the cleanup of the last event.) They ranged in locations too from Ogden to St. George, and it was a LOT of work.

I’ve already mentioned the doings of two weeks ago with events in Manti and Riverton. Well, THIS last week, we spent several nights awake until 3 a.m. or later just getting things done for the upcoming events. Wednesday night, I was up that late putting all of the flowers together for the Thursday wedding the next day. Normally, I get a lot done but then get some sleep and finish up in the morning. Since I had to work on Thursday this time, I needed to have it ALL done so I could get to work at the law firm on time, but not worry about the flowers. Jon was up and out the door with Hannah to take her to grandma’s house (She saves our bacon SO often…bless her…bless her…bless her!), and then he picked up all the flowers and drove up to the temple to photograph the couple with my flowers in his hands. He’s amazing! He was even early enough to get a good parking spot, and the cooler weather was a blessing because it makes it less crazy when we leave things in the car.

The big brain freeze of that event was a combination of things. First of all, the bride and/or her mother never returned a floral contract to me, so I was going off of old emails and notes in my files to finalize everything and while I was putting flowers together. An email on Wednesday night mentioned flowers for the cake, which confused me because that had never been mentioned in emails before. Crap. They needed me at the reception hall at 4 to put flowers on the cake. I had a few extra flowers, and Jon took them to the reception hall for me, so that was fine, but I worked until 3:15 and then still had to go pick up the flowers for the other two weekend weddings at two different wholesalers who both close by 5, as well as pick up the enlargements from our print lab for Thursdays’ bride to display at her reception. How was I going to get all of that done in half an hour?! I also realized later that the bride had wanted a cascading bouquet, which was not in my notes, and which was not in the emails, and which mistake on my part annoyed her mother. Apparently, they liked the bouquet I did bring, but it wasn’t what they’d wanted. Again, I had some extra flowers and I could make it work…just give me a minute. In talking with the mom, she mentioned having called me to confirm everything and mentioned the cake and cascade on that phone call. That was possible, but I usually take calls while I drive, and I don’t write from behind the wheel…which is why I like final contracts that detail everything and that we’ve both signed so that everyone is clear and on the same page. Like I said…mutual miscommunications there.

I ran around my office getting everything done for my boss on thursday and then at the stroke of 3:15, dropped work on Kristy’s desk, said goodbye and bolted for the door. I’d contacted one wholesaler who gave me the code to their door and said that they’d just bill my card and let me come pick up my flowers myself after they’d closed. They’re SO good to work with! The second wholesaler was open on Friday early and I could get the stuff from them on Friday if I needed to. I have Friday off, so that would work. The photos were the important thing right now, so I headed there first. I got to my car and was just getting on the freeway when I looked down at the clock to see the time. 2:30. Huh?! I checked the clock on my phone, and it said the same thing. What the….?! I must have read the clocks at work wrong! I left an hour early! Ack! But I’d stopped at my boss’s office and I had finished all that work?! How did I do all that and still leave with an extra hour? I called my boss and apologized (she hadn’t even notice the hour and had assumed I was leaving on time), and let her know that I’d make up the work. She was totally cool with that (as she is usually pretty cool all-around) and I continued on my way to the print house. I realized that with the extra time, I could hit both of my wholesalers after all, so I stopped at the first one and filled up my car with flowers. I got the pictures next, and then hit the second floral wholesaler last. Everything I needed. Boom! I ran home and got everything in water, and then started towards the reception hall to put flowers on the cake for the Thursday wedding as well as to deliver their pictures for display. It was still only about 3:15 at that point…ironic that it was the time I really should have been leaving work and I was already done with all of my errands and was leaving HOME at 3:15…and I asked Jon if it was worth the time for me to go pick up Hannah and bring her with me since I wasn’t expected with the flowers until 4. He said yes, so I detoured all the way out to West Jordan, got the baby girl, and ran uptown to the Deveraux Mansion.

Jon ran around with Hannah for a while as I put the flowers on the cake and then turned the rounded bouquet into a cascading bouquet, which floored the bride AND her mom. I love being able to smooth feathers and give good customer service. Spin control. Client Care. We like making people happy, so as long as you communicate with me and give me a chance, I’ll do everything I possibly can to make it what you want it to be! A quick burger hit the spot and then I took Hannah home to get her to bed and start on the flowers for wedding #2 for Friday.

Wedding #2 was all painted flowers. It made me a bit nervous because this bride had been sweet enough, but at the same time, she was absolutely certain of what she wanted. She had a very specific idea of the flowers she wanted, and I had to live up to that expectation. Instead of having some favorite flowers for me to create something beautiful and surprising from, I had to meet a specific design idea, and there were no spaces in that to wiggle. I spent hours that night painting white stephanotis purple and cream, and half of the cream roses got painted purple. Everything was to be dark purle and cream, and no exceptions. The Stephanotis is a testy little flower…tough in its own way, but delicate too, and I wasn’t sure how paint was going to affect it. The cream looked great, but the purple was watery and streaked a bit on the steaphanotis as well as on the roses, and it made me nervous. I ran out of purple paint half way through and freaked out a little bit because it meant I was going to have to run to the store first thing and get more paint, and then I wasn’t sure everything would be dry in time. Ack! I took a break and went upstairs.

While I was doing some dishes, I noticed a can of paint on the counter that looked the same as the can I’d just thrown away. I picked it up, and it WAS the same! I realized then that I must have bought the purple paint a few weeks earlier in anticipation of testing it on some extra flowers before the big day so that I’d have some experience with it! I’ve used so many other paints at this point, I’m not sure why I felt like I needed practice with that one, but bless the inspiration to buy a can that would get put aside in the fury of other events and only be found at the exact moment I’d need it! Jon got home and helped me paint some more flowers (being the sweetest husband ever, he was also carrying a big piece of the wedding cake for me from wedding #1) and then I got vases prepped for centerpieces and cut pins to put into the stephanotis blooms (regular pins are too long and I have to use industrial wire cutters to shorten them). Yes, it was another 3 a.m. night, and then I was up at 7 to get things going again for a delivery at 3 p.m. in Bountiful.

Hannah was a trooper and let me work while she watched tv and then she took a perfectly timed nap to let me finish the flowers and load up the car. I even showered and dressed before she was up and needing to be changed. We jumped in the car and pulled into the Eldredge Manor at 3:00 on the dot! I love that!

Hannah ‘helped’ me unload and place all the flowers. The centerpieces looked great and only two of them had to be refilled with water. The bouquets and boutonnieres were placed on display by the time the bride and her family were ready for them, and then I was in the hall, setting flowers on the cake before I knew it. I was feeling much better too by then because so many people were talking about how much they liked the flowers and how pretty they were…even the bride mentioned that they were better than she’d hoped. YAY! I think the overall effect of a beautiful bouquet made up for any little bits of streaking there may have been. I think too that she was prepared for the paint to make the flowers look funky and unnatural, so the extra time I’d taken to paint them in thin layers was worth the natural look it lent! Whew. I got paid the final amount for the work and loaded Hannah back in the car to head home.

Jon’s wedding in Ogden that day (wedding #3 for our weekend) was for an adorable bride, Candace and she had told us that they expected to be done early…the invitation said reception from 4 to 6, and then they planned to leave…we were happy about that! Well…fun families tend to hang out and talk longer than what it may say in the itinerary, and this couple were definitely FUN. They even rolled down the hill at the temple in their dress and tuxedo. I think Jon finished at their reception and was to his car by about 8:30. In the meantime, I had loaded my car with vases, flowers, bags, and supplies for wedding #4, which was the next day in St. George. I worked on mounting photos until Jon got home and then I changed Hannah into her pajamas, put her in the car and then grabbed the last minute things for the road. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the keys to my car to hit the road. We rummaged the house top to bottom three times looking for keys and spent half an hour in the frantic search. Jon said a prayer, and Hannah sat patiently in her carseat, and I finally realized that I may have dropped them while loading the trunk. Luckily, the car has a button on the inside, and upon pushing it, I grabbed the paper bag, and voila! Keys! We’d nearly resigned ourselves to unloading my car and transferring it all to Jon’s car, but his tire had a nail in it and we didn’t want to risk driving all the way to St. George on that. Whew! We jumped in and headed out by 10.

Jon sent a text to our friends in St. George to let them know that we’d run long (not at all shocking to them) but let them know that we were still on the way and wouldn’t roll into their driveway until around 3 a.m. They thanked us for the news, but said (rightly so) that they wouldn’t be waiting up for us. Aaronee and Vaughn left the back door open and a light on, and after an extremely LONG drive, where Jon and I had to trade off driving several times because one or the other of us was too tired to keep going, we were SO happy to see that light. I carried Hannah in and we made another trip to the car to bring in bags, but tumbled quickly into the welcoming beds that had been set up for us. We love Aaronee and Vaughn!!! It was soo cute too because there was a note on the bed that said “Sweet Dreams” and each pillow had a little bundle of Junior Mints. Aww! I also noticed that I’d received a text message on my phone. It had come in at around 1:00 a.m. while we were driving and it was the sweetest thing ever! A note from my bride of that day with the painted roses, apologizing for the late hour, but wanting to tell me again how much she’d loved my work and that they’d so appreciated everything I’d done. Awww! YAY! As tired as I was, you can bet I fell asleep with a smile that night!

Hannah was awake at 7:30, which meant that I was awake at 7:31. We let daddy sleep and went upstairs to say hi to the family. Vaughn was the only one home and awake at that hour, so we got to chat with him for a bit while Hannah explored her new surroundings and I worked on tying earrings to the photos I’d mounted the night before. Aaronee got home with Asia (she’d had to go to work and Asia went along for the ride) and then Hannah and Asia had a blast learning to play together. It was adorable! Vaughn took the girls outside to the chicken coop and they harvested the eggs for that morning. Hannah loved it! Jon woke up soon after that, and we all had some tasty home grown eggs for breakfast!

We all hung out for a while talking, but then Vaughn suggested visiting the Farmer’s Market to see his brother play in the stage area they had in the center of all the booths. Cool! We loaded up and headed out. Unfortunately, we missed his brother by moments (Vaughn ended up helping him clean up his instruments and speakers) but we still had fun wandering the booths watching the girls play together. We got some lunch and all ate at a park before heading home for some of us to get naps.

Me?…no…no nap. I tried, but Hannah was on one and would not settle down. When Jon came down to join us, he told me what time it was and I realized that even if I hadn’t slept, I had a bouquet still to finish before we needed to go. Ugh. Jon and Hannah got a bit of sleep while I enjoyed a quiet hour on the deck, painting flowers and de-thorning them. I wasn’t done by the time Jon woke up and told me that we had to go, but I loaded everything into the car and wrapped stems on my lap while Jon drove. The bouquet and boutonniere were done by the time we reached the reception center, and then Jon helped me to unload all the vases and even helped me place some branches before people showed up and were ready to have him shoot photos. I was swamped trying to get photos and jewels on the branches, especially with Hannah being 2 (she kept standing at the edge of the pool and would lean against the rocks spouting water…she was soaked and happy…but kept several of us nervous that she was going to go for a swim), but some of the family of the bride and groom stepped up and asked if they could help. Thank you! We really do work with the best people! We banged out the trees, and they looked awesome! The bride called to have me bring her bouquet and to help her tie the bow on her gown (you’d be surprised how many girls can’t tie a straight bow!) and we were basically done with the trees, so I left my helpers to finish up the last set of branches, and ran upstairs. Bouquet in hand, bow tied, BOOM! My job was done until clean-up at 9.

I ran Hannah out to the car and changed her out of her wet clothes and put a sassy little skirt on her. Bad call. She tripped and fell about thirty seconds later and completely skinned up both her knees. She was a trooper though and had herself composed by the time the ring ceremony started a few minutes later. She hated waiting for the food after the ceremony, and threw a bit of a fit when I told her it wasn’t our turn to load up plates. I usually wait until the end of the line…being on staff and not a guest…but a hungry little girl who’s been munching on displayed candy wasn’t happy about my patience. I realized then, that at some point that night, the bride was going to want a tossing bouquet. I had everything for the tosser in the car and just needed to put it together. Hannah welcomed the distraction for a moment and we retired to the brides dressing room/restroom area to put the flowers together.

Unfortunately, it was at that moment that Hannah REALLY turned 2. Hannah knocked over the garbage can and then refused to clean it up. A stint in time-out had her freaking. She tried to get around me…literally…she kept trying to stand up and get around the back of me to give me hugs…which I love…but which wasn’t appropriate right at that moment. After half an hour of screaming and crying (included a moment while I was using the facilities and she kept opening the door to the hallway) we went down to the car and cried some more. I sat in the back seat with Hannah screaming on my lap for another hour. We opened the door now and then for a bit of air, and we had short sections of calm between those screaming fits, but we shared that back seat for a good hour. I didn’t want to give in and let her feel like she’d get a reward for bad behavior, and I also didn’t want to make a scene at someone’s wedding.

Hannah finally calmed down enough that we could go to the end of the line again and load up on some truly gourmet and stellar food! NUM! We ate well, and Hannah took several opportunities to join the kids of the family and ran around on the golf course. I called her back several times, and as it started to get dark, she pushed the boundaries further than I wanted her to. She didn’t go in the water again this time, but kept running off. She loved the little trails and soft grass, and though I’m sure it was safe enough, I wanted her to stay closer to home. When the other kids got reigned in by their parents, I reigned Hannah in as well. Other kids stayed on the lit patio after that, but as soon as I told Hannah not to go over the bridge anymore, she ran right over the bridge. Ugh. It was about 8:00 by now, and I knew she had to be tired. I took her to the car again, took her shoes off, strapped her into her carseat, and sat myself down in front. She just HAD to fall asleep, right?

Wrong. She was calm enough after a few minutes of tears, but she never fell asleep. She sat and read her Halloween book over and over again while I tried to catch a few blinks. No luck. I ended up playing dozens of more games of bubbles on my phone just to pass the time than I would have liked. Still, an hour later, when I realized that more and more of the guests were leaving, signaling the end of the event, I admitted defeat at the hands of a 20 month old child, and put her shoes back on. We walked back to the hall and I put Hannah down so that I could start cleaning. She burst into tears and kept begging, “Hod You! HOD YOU!” After screaming at me all day and hitting me every time I tried to reason with you, NOW you want me to hold you?! I picked her up and walked into the other room and started crying myself. Hannah was taken aback, and then cried again when she started wiping the tears from mommy’s face and couldn’t figure out why they were falling.

I calmed down and made a deal with Hannah to let her be my helper if she would stay by me. One of the gradmas gave her a cup of puffed corn too, and she was just fine after that. Jon was right there to pile up trees with me, and we wrapped the vases in paper and loaded them back into the car with only one vase broken (a record). I don’t think we were off the property of the golf course before I was bawling again. It was just such a relief to be finished, at the same time as just letting the stress of it all go. I was so tired too. I just had to cry. I was finished after a short time, and then we were able to visit with Aaronee and Vaughn again for a while before all of us went to bed.

Sunday morning we were up early and out the door by 9. Jon was amazing and drove the entire length of road home. Hannah and I slept for most of the ride, and by the time we pulled into the garage, everyone was SO ready to be finished with the wedding season. We all heartily agreed with Hannah’s sigh of, “HOME!”

I showered and dressed quickly, and since Jon and Hannah weren’t feeling well, I left them home and ran to lead the primary music at church. Everything seemed scattered for me, but our primary president assured me that it went just fine. I just know that our performance at the sacrament meeting for the ward is coming up and these kids need to know these songs! The next week was going to be a conference where we didn’t have class, and then it is only two weeks until we perform. It’s going to be nutty! As soon as class ended, I went straight home and Jon and Hannah and I spent a totally quiet night. Ahh. A much-needed breather after all the insanity.

Now, I’m actually still stressed with work at the law firm, getting Christmas into full swing at the same time as finishing special projects on top of normal work, as well as getting the wedding things caught up…the post-production work part of the business…but it’s SO much better than it was two weeks ago. Whew! I’m SO grateful to the amazing people we worked with who were so helpful, as well as to Jon who puts up with my weird moments (though, I guess it’s only fair, eh love?) and to Hannah for making it worth the surviving! Thank you all again for keeping our heads above water! Love you! And, just so you know, we don’t have another wedding on the calendar until December right now. Ahh! Maybe that break will give us a chance to get caught up and breathe for a while. Yeehaw!

Love of shoes

Yes. I love shoes. I own fewer than 20 pairs, but I have always loved a lovely pair of pumps. At war with my love of sassy shoes was a frugal streak inherited from my father. Despite the love of artisan name brand work, I couldn’t ever bring myself to pay a lot for a pair of shoes, so the love was restricted to dreaming while watching Carrie Bradshaw sashay down the streets of New York in her Jimmy Choos.

Still, a few years ago…more now than I care to recall…I lived with the fabulous Britta and carried on a slightly vicarious shoe life through her. She had an eye for sassy sexy shoes, and being a petite woman with a size 5 foot, didn’t hurt! There are very few size 5 women out there, so those were always the ones that didn’t sell and eventually went on sale. She was a shrewd buyer and had the most amazing collection.

One day, Britta got a wild hair…I don’t even remember why…but it prompted her to eliminate nearly half of her collection! I think she gave it to charity, which seems slightly nutty now while looking at classics on ebay and nothing new being as good as what we used to know. Being a woman of slight feet myself, I tried on several of her shoes before they were sent away and actually found one pair of fire red Steve Madden penny loafers with a little fringe on the toe that weren’t too tight. Britta gave them to me with love, and I wore her shoes with a great deal of happiness at least once a week (usually three or four times a week) through the intervening years.

As time wore on and the shoes wore out, I glued heels back together and threw away small bits of the lining as it tore out. Finally, when the outside of the shoe began to crack and wear away at the bends, I started searching for another pair of the same shoe. I have looked for those exact Steve Madden pumps for three years now…all while still wearing my gift from Britta…adding fringes of loose strings where there originally were none. No luck. I might have broken my frugal nature and paid way too much for the shoes if only I could find them again, but they were nowhere. Ebay, Craig’s List, Overstock, even the Steve Madden site! Nowhere could I find my pumps.

Finally, just this summer, I looked sadly at my continually disintegrating shoes with a right heel that made a different sound from the left when I walked, and felt a renewed need to find replacements. I found a site, SmartBargains.com because of a random Google search, and there were my shoes! They were missing the tassel, and they were a slightly brighter red (cherry instead of fire), but they were my red Steve Madden penny loafer pumps! And they were less than $30!!! Ack! Fate! Kismet! Joy! I bought them immediately and have been wearing them for a few hours a week to break them in right ever since that little box arrived in the mail. As of last night, when I wore them to a party, they were soft, exactly molded to my feet, and felt as comfortable as the old pair. Yay for perfectly broken in shoes!

YAY! for perfect pumps!

Hmm…maybe I should hit the site again and buy five more pairs right now so that I’m sure to always have a pristine pair in the wings…even when I’m 80.

Cutest baby ever!

Jon has been teaching Hannah how to ‘wink’ and it’s the cutest thing!

It went better than I had any right to expect!

We had planned to be in New York this weekend, and I was really looking forward to visiting the Big Apple again! I’ll admit too that telling people that a bride was flying me out to do a floral delivery was pretty rock-star. It was disappointing when Jenn let me know that the flights weren’t working out and that we were going to have to coordinate something else for her flowers. Still, it turned out to be a good thing!

Jenn and I had agreed that she would pick her flowers up first thing on Friday morning when she was on her way to the airport herself, so I had set my schedule of three weddings that weekend to have hers done first, but not early. If these flowers were supposed to make it through the flight to New York and be beautiful for the wedding on Saturday afternoon, I wanted to wait and make sure that they were as fresh as they could be. Then, surprisingly, Jenn stopped by at about 11 p.m. on Thursday night to see if she could pick up her flowers. Apparently, she’d emailed earlier, but I’d already left work and was running errands all day and so hadn’t gotten the news that she was going to try and get a really late flight. Doh. Sorry! No, the flowers won’t be done for another hour! She looked a little bit worried, but realized that she’d sprung something on me, so said that she’d go see what she could do and be back in an hour. Deal! I really was in the middle of her flowers, so it would work out fine for me if she wanted to come back at midnight…I planned to be up most of the night with wedding #2 anyway. She called later to say that the red-eye flight hadn’t panned out for her after all, so if she could switch it back to a 5 a.m. pickup, that would work for her. Sure.

I finished Jenn’s flowers, putting her bouquet in a vase to travel and her corsages and boutonniers went into a little disposable cooler with some frozen packets to keep them cool. If TSA wouldn’t allow those through, I also included some Ziploc bags that she could fill with ice once she was through the gate. Jon calls me a genius for that, but I figure that it was just covering the angles.

The next project was to paint about a million branches of curly willow. Maree had a very stark and cool eye when it came to her wedding, and she agreed to let me attack some details for her flowers within the color choices she’d made. Black, Turquoise, and White. Her only request was on the bouquet…black roses with white curly willow and some peacock feathers peeking out. We had three events over two weeks that her centerpieces were going to have to work through, and she didn’t want to waste a lot of money on fresh floral arrangements that were all going to die and cost more and more for every location. My solution for that whole process was to use curly willow branches in some tall vases and hang some of their most amazing engagement pictures (thanks to Jon!) from the branches. I mounted about 100 of their photos to black and turquoise paper with contrasting black and turquoise ribbon and came up with a great way to use earrings to hang the pictures from the tree branches…but…being me…I had to go the extra step and paint the branches white to bring in all three of Maree’s color choices. Jon was sweet enough to hit WalMart for me at midnight once I’d run out of paint from the first bottle I’d bought. I’d had no idea how many cans of spray paint it was going to take, but after getting started, we realized that it was going to take about ten. No lie. Jon hit WalMart, and we both spent the next hour and a half spray painting branches…breathing in too many fumes and cursing the cold weather. Jon had a sore trigger finger the next day, and my arms were so sore that I had the hardest time holding a pen. I needed to hold the pen though to write a note to Jenn and leave it in the door to let her know that the door was unlocked and she could come in and get her flowers. I left the instructions on the Ziplocs too, and that turned it into a much longer note than I would have preferred with my handicapped hands. Jon and I went to bed at around 3 a.m. and when I got up at 7:30, the flowers were gone, so I hope that Jenn had a great weekend and that the wedding was beautiful!!

Friday morning, I loaded everything, branches, vases, photos, and more, into the truck we’d borrowed and then got my little family showered and out the door. The wedding was taking place in Manti, and we had a long way to go. It was a beautiful day though, and we had a nice drive. I dropped Jon off at the temple to shoot, and ran down the street to set up the centerpieces for the dry-run at the luncheon site. Hannah was a huge help…or at least, she didn’t get into any craziness and keep me from getting things done quickly. She even attempted to drag a few of the branches over to me, which was completely adorable. Branches went into the vases, and photos were hung on the branches. I’d also found a fun thing…black jewels that looked like giant diamonds, and five of those went onto each tree…I think it turned out perfectly, and I was happy to finish about two minutes before the family walked in the door for lunch.

Hannah and I sat off to the side, not sure how many people were going to show up and so, unsure of where to sit. It was fun though to see everyone wander through the hall and look at every picture on every tree and ask members of the family if they had set all of these arrangements up. He he he. Nope…that was me! I giggled quietly in my corner and felt good that everyone seemed impressed. Once lunch was over and people started leaving, I began breaking down the arrangements again to pack them up and take them to the reception taking place that night in Riverton. Eek! Jon had a few more shots he wanted to get, and I figured that with his help we could set everything up in Riverton in about an hour, which was cutting it close since he wanted about 15 minutes back at the temple, and we needed to drive the two hours back from Manti. Luckily, I hit on the best helper well. Flower-girls! Little nieces watched me as I started to take photos and jewels off the trees and put them in the boxes for transport. Quickly, one of them brought me a couple of the jewels from the tree on her table and I smiled and thanked her. Then, I let her know that if she wanted to help me with the rest of the trees, one of those jewels would be hers to keep! I had two helpers in seconds after that, and they rocked out the clean-up process! They not only brought me jewels, but photos too, and then they started stacking the branches where I’d laid a few bunches down, as well as carefully placing vases in groups for me to repack! It was awesome! I ended up giving them an entire box of the jewels to split between them, and thanked them again for the help.

We made it to Riverton right on time, and the flower girls were there again. This time, they weren’t sure of the process, and Hannah was being charming, so they pretty much just played with her while we set up the trees…which was the best help at that point anyway! Jon graciously accepted some help from a couple of family members that had come early and had nothing to do, and with everyone working together, we had the tables decorated in about half an hour! YAY! It looked awesome! A whole new group of family and friends came to this event, and the tour of the room happened again and again as people wandered around looking at every picture, commenting on the design and the pictures. Whew. I’m so happy that it worked out so well. Cleanup that night took a little bit longer just because the flower girls had already gone home, and Jon was talking to some fans. (The flower girls did ask if they could help, but I told them that the party wasn’t over yet, so I wasn’t planning on taking things down yet, or I’d certainly allow them to help again. Such sweethearts!) Still, the father of the bride took some of the supplies home with him for transport to the next event in a week, and we realized that everything else will fit nicely into our car, so that’s a bonus we hadn’t expected.

We got home around 10:30 and put Hannah to bed before crashing early ourselves. We slept in a little bit on Saturday, but then Jon ran errands and Hannah took a well timed nap while I worked on wedding #3. Jon got home in plenty of time to drive me up to Log Haven for delivery on Amy’s flowers. It was fun to be right on time and in advance of the bride! It’s always more impressive when you beat them to their own wedding. Jon helped me lay out all of the arrangements, and I coordinated with the staff, letting them know that I’d included shears for the extra flowers that had been requested, showed them the nametags on all of the boutonnieres and corsages so that no one would have to question what went where. They were actually pretty impressed, which was fun to see too! I didn’t think that being clear and prepared was all that unusual, but I’ll take the pat on the back for being out of the ordinary in that way! I had everything done, and was headed to the car when another car pulled in behind us with a cute young girl in white sitting in the passenger seat. Hi, Amy! I walked Amy inside and went through the flowers with her before giving her a hug, wishing her a great wedding, and heading home.

Whew! Three weddings in one weekend…check!

I’d wanted to join my family for a Saturday night event, but Jon was slammed and fell asleep as soon as we got home, and Hannah had a terrible-two’s evening and freaked out to the point that I couldn’t get her back to the car to go out to my parent’s house. Sorry guys! I realized I was so tired too, so I ended up throwing on some jammies and joined Jon and Hannah in an early night.

The fantastic shocker of the weekend was that Jon and I slept in on Sunday, and Hannah let us! I rolled over at about 11 and was totally awake as soon as I saw the clock! I went right to Hannah’s room, and she sat up and said a bright, “Hewo!” He he he. Her diaper was so full that she’s soaked through her pants as well as her pillow, but she didn’t seem in the least concerned about it. What a fun baby I have! We spent a lovely leisurely day, and now it’s time for a little more sleep before jumping into another crazy week!

Thanks to everyone that helped, complimented, and supported this week! It was most appreciated!!!