The Spring Fling was a Big Success!
Good morning … this is me! I know, I know … like who else, right? Well one day we might surprise you and be somebody else you know? Well besides the multiple parts being somebody else. Ok, let’s not be silly this morning quite yet, hmm?The first thing we want to say is that our fishyman is behind us watching his fishy shows. He seems pretty happy and NOBODY is getting burned by that nasty coffee! This means we’re having a better day than the day before. It’s about 7:30 am now and we’ve both been up for about a half hour.
We had some pretty good snuggly time with Rich. There was also a little playing around that was nifty. We were telling him on the way home from the Spring Fling that he should remember, but after Spring Fling sex has always been good. IF that’s what was happening … you know us … steel trap mind never tells. Uh-huh, uh-huh … something like that.
It was just a long standing tradition. Back in the olden days we like never got him on weekends except we’ve always gone to this event together and it always bought us some real weekend time and you can imagine how happy that must have made us. Sweet!
Let’s finish off the night before we get to talking about the Spring Fling. There are just a few housekeeping notes. Basically, we had a little time to look over computer stuff after getting um along … because Rich went to the store to pick up some crackers, cheese, shrimp and wine coolers for dinner. We had a very good meal of it. And, then we watched a couple of movies while one of us or another was getting a nice massage. We’re sure the massagingest people you might know!
I’m not going to remember the shows now, I think … well wait the 2nd one was about this kid who travels and its names something like the Art of Travel. It was an enjoyable movie more like an Indie film. And, then I think the earlier movie was something silly. I think it was called The Kid with Bruce Willis … this is where he gets himself as an almost 8 year old and he has to somehow rationalize parts of his life to get everyone back to their own time continuum. It was entertaining. You know just light Saturday night entertainment.
We picked up both movies from the Netflix Queue. I like that we can SOMEtime make use of that!
Hmm, had to do some kitty petting for a bit. Missy came over meowing lightly saying she needed some attention so we pet her for a few, but then you know who came by saying HE needed attention too. He’s a little harder to shake. She backed off naturally, and now he’s here between our arms. Wow these guys are pretty incredible.
But, we’ve been at a turning point in our kitty career. Lately every time they come over and I get to pet them I feel this incredible amount of love for them, because I’m realizing how special they really are. It’s a good warm feeling. I’m not sure though that’s going over well with Rich. Usually what happens if I give the kitties attention then Rich comes up and says well if you want to be petting the cat more than ME!
Yeeks … you know how that sorta thing goes. Pretty healthy competition around here, but since both of them keep me cozy comfortable we just have to do the best we can.
Ok, so anyway that’s about it of last night … we went to bed a few moments after Rich left when the second movie was gone. We went back to reread something on line, but ended up being too sleepy to give that much more than a healthy fudgsicle spread of time.
Ok, so now to the big news … You just know we’re going to have to write our piece on how the Spring Fling went. This is something you could look up every year we have written … it’s always been a big deal.
First part was that I was glad to get there. Rich was thinking we had all the time in the world before we got there. I’m like Sr. said 11 am and I wanted to be there at 11 am sharp. At 10:30 am I was ready because that was the agreed upon time.
BUT, Rich said well we’ve got time – it only takes 15 minutes to get there
Whoops coffee break get the medicine time. Ok … and gathered some clothes too … Rich is going to be washing them in a few moments.
Ok, so anyway … we had to wait a few more minutes and then when we got in the car he headed the wrong direction … he decided he had to go into the bank to take care of a few deposits. It was like ARGH! Are we ever going to get there? Men … must have something against being exactly on time!
But, as things work out we got there ALMOST on time. Sr. as could be expected was hovering around the door. I think she wanted to make sure everyone was getting in proper. We noted that she seemed like she was in a good mood and she stayed that way the entire time. I was very happy to see that. Sometimes she’s under too much pressure.
Somewhere to within the time we were there she got sung happy birthday to. That was very nice to hear everyone being so nice. We said our own personal Happy Birthday to her later down the line when we were taking our turn watching the sale of items from St. Rose’s little craft tables. I think I must have spent about 1 ½ to 2 hours there. I didn’t have a clock to tell me right away what time it was, but I know we stayed there until the end of the day. Before that I know that Margarita and Imelda, and then later Stephanie each had their turns. I figured after I’d gotten around taking pictures of the dancers and such that it really was time to do my share of the stay behind the table and sell work.
By the time we’d gotten there though all the big stuff was sold … that was the stuff mostly coordinated by Imelda with her artistic abilities. By the time I got there it was mostly cards being bundled and some door hangers. I figured out right away that there wasn’t enough merchandise so I spread the cards from their basket out on the table. Rich offered a suggestion that I took in that he said to sell the cards 6 for $5. I sold 3 sets that way so I was pretty pleased with myself … Other stuff sold too, but usually just one or two dollars at a time.
Hmm, we’ve been looking at the pictures for a bit. We’re seeing if we can print to a Word document … We’ve got something on the layout screen that will put pictures in sets of 4 and that’s important because even at that we’ve got 47 pages.
Yeeks it’s about 10:30 am now and we’ve been trying to send the pictures in a Word document to sister, but it doesn’t seem to be working out. It’s not going through and I am not sure why … it’s a big file, but it’s on a word doc so nearly 50 pages shouldn’t be a big deal. Not sure why we’re having problems, but I’ll try again later, or save to the flash drive and print out at work tomorrow. Either is fine to me … BUT, I’d wanted to get Sr. the pages earlier. *Sigh*
Ok, so that’s not working … we’ll have to try later.
Rich is pushing that we are going to go for a walk along Lake Michigan at 1:30 pm.
It feels very threatening at this point. He really hates the fact that we like to spend our weekend on the computer, especially the morning. We’ve been good about helping him hang up clothes, but this is pressing things a bit. We like what we’re doing after the fact, but in the process it’s terrible!
Ahh just thought … we should give you a couple of Spring Fling pictures. I’m not which ones to save, but we’ll give you at least a few. Hmm, I closed up the picture thing, but I can get it up in a couple minutes … everything wants to work slowly this morning.
Hmm, It’s going to take a few pictures to get this all loaded. I better start now and then maybe take my shower and then perhaps do some more writing afterward, but I wanted to these shots out … not quite 20, but pretty much in that direction. I think that a pictures tells 1000 things. Let’s see what collection I’ve got … I tried to get all the staff with enough clients that you’ll get the picture of what goes on at these kinds of events and of the clients in particular. Remember patiently that we took between Rich and us 200 pictures, so I’ve really cut down quite a bit
This first picture is me with a few of our clients. Robin the new staff is to the right in the purple. Included in this shot is the client I always talk about as being overly talkative. God Bless her!
This is a picture of Margarita to the left selling stuff at the craft table with Sr. Theresa. I'm not sure who the other person turned away is. Sister spent a lot of time at the table umm organizing. I just think she had to be doing something ... she's not one to sit still.
These are a few professional clowns that drop by for the event. I don't have a lot to say either positive or negative, but mostly they just add color.
This is a picture of Robin and us again and her mother. We really did feel comfortable sitting down to talk to them. They were at our dinner table so that was a good deal. I'm glad sister put her with us. She's kind of new to know too many people yet.
This is us getting the signers ready to do their thing. We've got a few pictures of them because that was such an important part of our event. I was really proud of them and I think they knew that. They very much enjoy performing for their families.
Ok, you knew we'd be pretty proud of them, right?
This is Holly's side with the choir. To be honest, I don't remember more than a smidge of the whole thing. I don't remember hearing the choir or really seeing the performance. I know we came in late - hadn't heard the music until it had gone past 6-7 words, but we figured it out fast and got everyone back together. I should have spotted where the music was.
I thought this was a very good picture showing their dedication. One of the things I was most proud of was that we gave them something hard to do - and we had the bigger group - the ones who weren't as responsive singing and they all got a chance to really participate ... Not like in some of the older years where the center emphasized just a few people who do the best.
Ok, one last picture of the group ... this was after things we're over and we were pretty relaxed ... I'd do it again in a moment, but again much like with Dr. Marvin, we don't remember being there except we knew we were because we all got through it and there's pictures proof.
These are two staff we talk about all the time ... to the left is Margarita and to the right is Maria. This also marks the switch over in picture taking. Rich took all the pictures up to now and we have taken the rest. He had a lot of good pictures, just I didn't think you'd be as interested in just the people you don't know ... at least most of these are of people we talk about. Thought it nice to get a face with them. Margarita has been here for over 10 years and she's the one who gets all the odd spare jobs and Maria is the one that does Group 2.
This is a picture of Stephanie and her family. Stephanie is relatively new only being here a couple of years, but she fits in nicely. She works in Group 4 with Kathy thought Kathy wasn't here this year.
This was three other people that sat at our table. I thought it was the best dancing picture that was taken. All three of these women are sisters and are really special!
The person on the left of this shot is one of the parents, and the woman to the right is Kim. She is one of the two staff that joined us just in this last month. Robin was the other. Robin is the one that does Group 1 - four days a week, and does Qwork on Fridays, and Kim is the one that comes in only on Fridays and does work that day with Group 1 especially with goals. They didn't know before hand, but these this parent and Kim actually knew each other for school and it seemed they had a good time talking over things.
This is a picture of Rosa and one of her three sons. Rosa is the secretary and sister's personal assistant. She really knows her job well and does her best to stay out of trouble.
I threw this picture in just to get a general idea of the dance floor. Our group loves to dance! This wasn't meant to be anyone in particular, but there were so many dance pictures, I thought I should include at least one.
This was one section of the four that had prizes on it. Mostly small baskets of stuff that were being raffled off. People would buy and place tickets in those small plastic white bags and then one at a time they'd be drawn ... it was really a great system and it was very pretty to look at.
This is Imelda and she does the lion's share of the work on the craft part. She is the art teacher and she subs and does some cleaning. Everyone at the center is really versatile. Imelda and Margarita probably worked the craft table the most, but then Stephanie and us helped. I was really glad to be a part of it it made me feel very much a part of the center with them. I can't say enough how well the event went. There were over 300 people there ... that's a lot of fundraising.
This is a picture of one of the parents and Sr. Theresa. One of the other parents soon relieved Sr., but this was what it looked like as they were raffling off prizes. This parent in general though did a very, very good job. She did in English and in Spanish all the announcing, and it was all done in a very good mood. She's a treasure!
This is one more picture of this particular client. Her sisters seemed to spend most of their dinner time trying to tell her that she probably wouldn't win, but the client kept insisting the bunny rabbit was hers. This picture is of her indeed winning, but then I think we all win with an event like this. It really does a lot beside money making to pull in spirit this very large group of people. I feel like this group is family.
I'll come back to the blog entering in a few moments, but I'm going to pause here and take a shower. Rich has the fishying show one in the background, but he's grounding out some z's. We both had a small lunch, and then the next thing of course is to get me out doing something healthy. I can do it, right?
Well, there isn’t too much time left … we were able to send out the 20 group of pictures to a few people by email. The one’s to sister will have to wait until tomorrow. I was real pleased with them … none in particular, but all of them in general. I think it gave a real good idea where things were at. I wish I would have gotten a picture of Rich though. I never saw him while I was holding the camera. Hmm, I should have gotten him while I was at the craft table and he was across the way standing by the bar. That was a classic pose too!
I missed a shot of Sr. Theresa and the priests because my camera chose that moment not to work. She gave me some trouble, but we got through it anyway. There were less pictures taken this year of all the family tables. But, there’s only so much you can do … it’s hard to take strangers pictures when they don’t know you. I mean it was pretty obvious I was staff, but unless they were really smiling as I passed I really just looked for clients and staff. It seems that Rich must have done the same thing.
Oh well, another year is past. Let it go right?
I think Rich might be laying down in the other room, or up at his computer. I don’t hear him, but in 15 minutes we’re supposed to be ready to go. I better get on some clothes. It’s been a nice morning though hasn’t it … I enjoyed very much looking at the pictures. Maybe some more in a bit.
AHA! Dressed with 3 minutes to spare. Good girl!
posted by Ann Marie @ 3/22/2009 11:28:00 AM
Comments: 1
