Saturday, May 6, 2006
Dear Journal,
I am about a month behind! Here it is June 3rd, and I’m going back to write about some memorable April events. I’m telling myself "It’s okay," because at least I’m doing it.
Going way back to Jade’s reception which was held in Louis and Dawn’s back yard, in a word, it was magnificent. The decorations were gorgeous, the food scrumptious, the crowd overwhelming, the weather perfect, and family feelings warm and fuzzy. The day of the reception, we all went over and helped do the finishing touches. Dawn and her sister Joanne, visiting from England, had done all the big stuff after the huge tent was set up on Thursday. We put red cloths on the 12 round tables. Then added gold satin striped with netting cloths over the to of the red. Janet, Shiela, Blaine, and others helped cut the 26 dozen red roses down to a size that they could be put in rings of styrofoam for the center of the tables. Greenery was put around the base and a tall, 3 inch wide gold candle was put in the center, with a pretty glass chimney over that. They were lit that night along with thousands of little, twinkly strings of lights around the top of the tent and on the decorative trees. It was like a fairyland.
Other details that day that we helped with were: Lee was the man of the hour, helping with lights, cords, and got the rock fountain flowing with water, and other stuff. Mitch, Kelly, Jen, and all the kids either helped us or helped with the little kids. Ashley helped by doing hair, Alexa’s and maybe Jade’s too; the ‘beauty shop" was upstairs. We set up the gift table; Janet cleaned the bathrooms and upstairs; I tied some of the cute favors, which were circles of net with candy-shelled almonds inside tied with dark red and brown ribbons. Those were Jade’s colors. The cake was chocolate brown with red roses. They served chocolate cake with a creamy pudding filling, as well as little plastic, tall dessert cups of chocolate pudding. The spread of food was elaborate: chocolate covered huge strawberries, little chicken salad croissants, small ham and cheese flaky biscuits, spinach dip with crackers and bread, vegetables and dip, and other yummy stuff.
The receiving line was set up over the end of the pool with its own tent which was decorated with the same red velvet as the big tent in the yard. There were red roses floating in the pool in front of the line. As is usual, there was a video playing of Jade and Ty as the guests came in and signed the guest book. There was an enormous crowd of over 500, we think. They ran out of food at the very end because they planned for 300. We were so pleased that so many of Blaine’s family were able to come: Judy and Roger, Joanne and Tom, Randy Stock, Tom and Lovenia, Gary and Lori, Suzanne, Cindy and Dave, and others I’ve probably forgotten. We know a lot of their friends, but were pleasantly surprised that a lot of our own friends came: Verd and Karyle Rogers, my roommate Sherrill Funk and Herm, and her daughter Lori and Todd, Rudger and Ruth Hiatt, with whom I spent a lot of the evening visiting. It was fun to see David and Pam Kitchen, Louis’ friend from Snowflake days who now lives in the valley and others we hadn’t seen in awhile. Rick and Cari West brought their few weeks old baby and came. It was a wonderful party, and every member of our family was there except Jason who is in Hungary on a mission. We took lots of family pictures. Jade looked gorgeous and Ty so handsome, and we have a whole disk of pictures to enjoy from that night as well as the ones from San Diego at the temple.
Family helps family. And that night, I don’t think Lee ever sat down during the reception. He helped keep the trash cans emptied, helped the caterers with anything they needed, and generally was the back-up guy. We all stayed till the last hurrah after the reception and cleaned up what could be. The next day, Blaine did his part to help this tired family by treating all 30 0f us to lunch at Sweet Tomatoes. We got to sit all together, and visited and had a grand time. This was after everyone went to church, in their own wards, of course.
The next day was Derek’s final concert with Honor Choir which has been a big part of his high school years. This was held at the Westwood High’s auditorium to a full audience. They had bought new, black, nice, collared shirts with a white Westwood Warrior emblem for the students to wear. Derek had a prominent part in this concert, which was on the lighter side, since their March concert had been more classical. Derek is the leader of the special, small group called the Cantori Club. They performed a number called "Seasons of Love." Then a highlight of the night was a video presentation of memories of the Honor Choir and their performances through the year. Derek gathered pictures from the members and took them to a video person Janet knew, and the result was a great trip down memory lane with musical accompaniment that was presented that night to an enthusiastic audience. The kids loved it. Janet had copies of the DVD to sell; it’s very attractive with pictures of the choir on the front of the CD. We are so proud of Derek, his example, his talents, and his leadership.
One added benefit of this concert was seeing Ashley go stand by Derek at the conclusion when they sing their special Choir’s song. All former members of Honor Choir are invited to come and join the choir in this special concluding number. They stand in a circle around the room singing. It’s a touching time, especially for those participating. It gave me a thrill to see Ashley stand by Derek and sing. It was so great to have Ashley home for this special concert and weekend. She and Jade are just 6 weeks apart in age, and so it was neat to have her get to come home from Utah to participate in her reception.
This was another special family weekend that we will remember always.
There were a couple of memories that I forgot to include in my last entry. When we went to the temple in San Diego for Jade’s wedding, we ran into special friends as we waited to enter the sealing room. Harold and Polly Logan are temple workers at the San Diego Temple and happened to be working that day. We sat and visited with Harold while we waited for Polly, who is a coordinator and had a meeting. What a thrill to give Polly a hug around the neck when she came. What an unexpected, nice surprise.
When our daughter-in-law, Jennifer went to Provo to Women’s Conference at BYU, with her mother and sister, we were happy for her. She had invited me to go along, but with all the traveling we’d been doing, I decided to watch it on TV. But another unexpected surprise was when Jen called me from BYU telling me of running into someone who said to her, "Are you Verona Jarvis’ daughter-in-law?" It was Joan Ralphs who had lived in Snowflake years ago, about 40 to be exact, when we first moved here. We were close friends, and have kept in touch over the years. In fact we met up with her another year about 5 years ago, at Women’s Conference. She told Jen to tell me hello, and to come next year. That was fun to have Jen meet our good friend.