What a Weekend!

And boy, I am sure glad that it is over! It was a very emotional, action packed last 3 days, well, I should say week! Thankfully my mom came in from Florida on Tuesday and she was able to help me out. Lord knew I would need the humor she brings to maintain my sanity.

WEEK HO-HUM
Although I was busy from the Monday, the things I was doing was typical of me when I am preparing for a big event. I ADORE planning parties and celebrations, so I was in my zone. Mom was able to keep me company in my runs to the many shops I had to pick up all the items I needed for Leilani's 1st Communion celebration on Saturday. And the places I knew Christopher would be bored out of his mind at, she stayed home and entertained him. Dinnerware....CHECK, Decorations....CHECK.....Ingredients for menu...CHECK. Everything was going as planned.

BUMP IN THE ROAD....TIME TO FORMULATE A PLAN B
Oh yeah. Everything can not go as planned for me all the time, right? I mean Ms. Planner, Ms. Queen of Making a List and Checking it Twice can not plan every single perfectly laid out event without having glitch in the plans right? I mean in the past 10 years I have been organizing events for myself and for others there was bound to be a bump in the road. And yes, my friends, the communion party I had to carefully planned out had come to a complete SCREEEEEECH!!!!!

The hall I had rented for the event was a place I was familiar with. I had used the VFW for several of my parties, namely, Christopher's Christening, Leilani's 5th Princess Dress Up Party, Christopher's 1st Birthday Party...so it was a place I knew very well. But in any case I had made arrangements on 3 occasions once I had a verbal agreement to rent the hall over the phone, to go and see the place. I wanted to get a visual again so I knew how to arrange the tables and all that jazz. Well, I had called 3 times and made appointments, went to the hall, and all three times I was stood up. Either the bartender who was suppose to be there got sick, or had an emergency, or some other excuse. That should have been my sign of things to come!

Friday rolls around, and after running around with Mike throughout the day getting the last minute items, we packed up the van, left the children with Grandma Auri and took Grandma Iris to assist us in the decorating. On the ride over I told Mike I really hope that we don't get stood up again. Thankfully we weren't....or was it thankfully? The bartender opened the door and we walked into the place. My OCD nightmare stood before my eyes! I knew that the hall had a pool table...it had some wooden covers and we had set it up on prior occasions as the food table. No problem. But this time there was not only one, but TWO pool tables. One was in the corner with a drape, the other in the side of the hall. But if that weren't enough! There was a HUGE shuffle board which dominated the entire length of the hall. And I mean from one end to the other! On the other side there was a HUGE rack with chairs. And the tragedy doesn't end there....the place was FILTHY!!!!! The floor was dirty with spills and debris from the last party (which we knew was a baby shower from the sign remnant and balloons flying in the cieling that were left behind). On top of that there was a layer of dust. The bathrooms had not had a scrubbing in ages. And to put the icing on the cake, several windows were broken. Some of them were taped up with pieces of cardboard from old Miller Light boxes, but some were there with exposed broken chards of glass. I was in shock! Mom and Mike started attempting to clean. My mind was reeling. I asked the guy, where were we expected to set up the tables at for the event since there was all these HUGE pieces of playing equipment around? His reponse? "Oh set it up in the middle of the hall. No big deal?" No Big DEAL??? OK, and I bet it is no big deal that we would have to be charged $150 to rent the hall in non-rentable condition, and have to give it a major scrubbing down in order to make it presentable and then have to work AROUND these eyesores in order to make it presentable for the party???? NO WAY!!!! I ended breaking down and telling Mike, No. I don't care if I have to call every person on the guest list and tell them that we are doing it at the house.

And with that we packed up everything and took the items back home. I called everyone that had confirmed they were coming and started working on plan B. Wait a minute....there is NO PLAN B!!!!! I freaked. Something told me to call my friend Michele, who I had already told my friend Arlene (who is her daughter in law) to notify of the change in plans. God must have been nudging me to call her. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown thinking "Where the heck am I going to get tables at 8pm with a 9am communion?" she came up with a huge idea. She said "Go to Costco. Buy several tables and chairs...even if you don't use them all you can always return the ones you don't want." Do you hear the angels singing??? Since Costco closes at 8:30pm, I made a beeline for the door with Mike and Grandma Iris and made it to Costco by 8:18pm. By 8:30pm we were walking out with 2 tables and 12 chairs. We cleared out the playroom and prepared everything for the party.

WHERE DID MY BABY GO?
I forgot to mention in the first paragraph that I had attempted to do a test run of Leilani's hairstyle for the communion. Of course, God does things for a reason! He probably knew that I would have my nerves on ends from the hall experience, so he made sure I couldn't do it. I ended up begging the owner of the local hair salon to please open up for us at 7:30am (her first appointment was at 8am) in order to style her hair. She thankfully said yes! So we woke up bright and early and went to the salon and got her hair done without a hitch. We returned, got her dressed, and to the church in time. I couldn't help thinking...here is my 8 year old baby girl waking up to get ready for her big day, dressed ina beautiful white gown with her hair done up in a veil.....15-20 years from now this will be exactly what we will be doing for her wedding day! So when the music started playing and she was walkiing down in the church aisle, that was it. My tears started flowing. She looked beautiful, and she did a wonderful job reading. It's hard to imagine that this was already the second of the three times she has a ceremony in a church dressed in white.

THE PARTY WENT ON FLAWLESSLY
I am happy to say, that the guests arrived at my house, ate, mingled, laughed, and had a wonderful time. They all mentioned how much better it turned out having it at home. Everything looked beautiful. I truly say I am thankful that it all went well. The most important thing was seeing my baby girl recieve her sacrement and that she was happy! God always does things for a reason. We ended up returning one of the two tables, and 6 of the twelve chairs,and at the end spent a little over what the cost of the hall would've been in order to keep a table and 6 chairs for future get togethers and BBQ's. We went up to bed, and I was sound asleep by 9pm. What a weekend it was! (I will post pics later).