I really intended to do a Monday Memo post a week ago yesterday. It. didn't. happen. Here's why: when we got back from the wedding in Boston, my volunteer commitments were heavier than usual. One of the biggest ones was planning and preparing for a volunteer luncheon that will actually happen while we're in Chicago next week. It's for the volunteers at a local food pantry. There are a huge group of volunteers who work the Monday, Wednesday, Friday food cupboard, volunteers (some are the same) who work the mobile food pantry (fresh produce, dairy, etc) every other Tuesday, and another group who work in the Foodlink garden which supplies produce for both food operations in the summer. We're hoping to build community among the volunteers as well as thank them for all their time.
Since most of the volunteers are also clients of the food pantry, we purchased gift cards. I made a set of gift card holders, cutting them with the Silhouette using some of my two-sided scrapbook papers. Then I die cut and stamped a frame from "Fillable Frames #11," and added a stamped frame and sentiment from "Fillable Frames Additions #2." It's amazing how often those "oldies but goodies" come in handy.
The gardening crew are neighbors of the church where the food cupboard is located or members of our congregation. We purchased gardening gloves and wrote notes to each of them. I bought seed packets and attached them to the front of the cards. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Garden Variety."
Yesterday I finished all the shopping and ordering for the luncheon itself. Tomorrow Tracy and I will get the tables to the church that are needed for the luncheon, and I think I'll be done. I'm really sorry to be away when it happens, but we're on babysitting duty in Chicago next week while Sarah is at a week long retreat.
Now for the content of the intended post. Two weekends ago we were in Boston for the very elegant wedding of my daughter-in-law's youngest sister and her high school sweetheart. They went to college in Boston, and have never left. Leon's family is from China, and ten of his relatives came from China for the wedding. None of them had ever been to the United States before. I think they had a fabulous time. Friday night, Paul hosted a dinner primarily for them as well as the rest of the family. It was held on the 52nd floor of the building where Leon works. Here's the view we had of Boston, the river, and Cambridge beyond.
On Saturday we took the little girls to The New England Aquarium.
I'll be back soon with more photos for Sandi's Five in Five meme that I took at the penguin exhibit. The two older girls had a fun with the sculptures as well as the real animals and fish.
The wedding was on Sunday. Most of the day was taken up with preparations. It was a big wedding party. Karen has a large group of very close friends from both college and growing up here in Rochester, so preparations took awhile. Pictures outside the hotel (where the wedding took place) started an hour and a half before the ceremony. Luckily, we had great weather. Here are my favorites from the photo sessions before the wedding. All three little girls "walked" down the aisle. (Actually Dad carried Madelyn, and Ella held her mother's hand. Skylar walked with her cousin, fourth from the right in the photo below.)
No photos were allowed during the ceremony which I totally understand. I'll be looking forward to seeing the professional photos. The photographers were wonderful.
We had a great weekend. We had a little time to wander around on Saturday afternoon, visited Faneuil Hall, and had breakfast twice at Flour Bakery where I had the best breakfast sandwich I ever had. Thanks to Nan who recommended the bakery. A box of sticky buns came home with us as well on Monday.
On that delicious note, I'll sign off! Hopefully, it won't be so long between blog posts, but with another trip in the offing, it may be November until I'm back on a regular schedule.
