CATCH UP TIME!!!

Okay so I've got a couple months of catch up to do. It's amazing how blogs keep you connected. I was getting phone calls and e-mails wondering if everything was okay because I hadn't blogged. Last night my friend Donna Gisbert calls to remind me that I have one!! So here I am....

Some of these pics are from March, but I have been requested by a few people to please post some pics of a wedding I went to, so I am. I had planned to put a lot more pics up on each of these topics, but in separate posts. But since I'm doing this all at once, things are kind of abbreviated.

So here goes..........Starting now and going backwards.....



Here is Little Emma Platt opening her present from me and Darren. I went to Gymboree and roamed that store for over an hour. Oh my gosh that place has cute clothes. Even for one year old's, matching purses, hair things, socks, shoes, bracelets, so fun. I finally ended up with this, a cute pair of denim shorts and a pink top. Of course Emma preferred the bow that was on the box, but me and Jenny had fun with the outfit!



This was at Emma's one year birthday party and Glenn and Robin Garvin dedicated her. Robin brought Georgie and explained why we dedicate babies and then Glenn talked a few minutes and prayed over the family. I was honored to be a part of this. Glenn was so right when he said that when Jenny and Darrenn welcomed Emma into their family, we all felt like she was our baby too. We all had been praying for a long time for this to happen, so it seemed a little extra special celebrating her.



Here is the Platt Family again during the dedication. I'm not sure what Emma is saying here...Please don't take me tall man!! :o) Anyway, it was a great day and as always Jenny planned the perfect fun filled party!



Ooops...this is out of order...anyway....the next weekend was Mother's Day weekend and that meant the Pan Am Fiesta in Lakewood. Our church hosted a booth again this year and I was in charge of it, with the help of Holly and Mark Deojay it was a great success. I was really proud of our booth! We didn't win first place for the best decorated booth, the Girl Scouts did, undeservedly so might I add...but I'm not bitter, I'm just not buying anymore of their cookies!! ;o)

This is Cooper, our mascot. God Bless all those who wore him that weekend. Our music pastor, Marcus, was a great sport and wore it the last two hours of the weekend, after several people had sweated inside it...totally gross. We had a polaroid camera and took instant shots and kids and families with Cooper. That is a huge draw to our booth and we get to send them home with a great picture and memory from our church!






This year we did a backyard theme...basically trying to let people know that Life Center is in their backyard. So we made our booth a backyard. Darren built the fence that we placed inside the booth and instead of having kids do a craft this year, I had them put their handprints up on the fence and it was so cool. We have complete families who put their prints up there. The kids loved it.

We displayed the booth in our church foyer for the two weeks following and we actually some families visit our church because of the booth! How cool is that. I started crying when I saw two little girls showing their parents where their handprints were, this was a visiting family, and when they walked in and saw the display they got all excited.



I think this pic is funny...Dan and Mark came to help Darren set everything up and they were being neighborly!!



Here we are early Saturday morning...my birthday, May 10th!! I spent the entire weekend from early morning Saturday to about 7pm Sunday doing the Pan Am thing, so I kind of missed my birthday. Darren did go get dinner from Lucille's about 8:30 or 9:00p.m. Saturday, but I was so stinkin' pooped, I barely had the energy to eat. I did, of course, then headed off to bed. Anyway....the booth is cool, huh! We had a corner booth this year so we spread out as far as we could. We figured we just keep going until the city peeps told us not to. They never did!!!



Okay, so a couple weeks before that, April 20th, it was Darren's 39th birthday. His birthday fell on a Sunday, so we all went out to Roundtable for lunch after church and celebrated. He got gift cards to where else, Best Buy, so he was happy. I made cupcakes, so we had pizza and cupcakes! Then that night I fixed dinner for everybody who comes to our home fellowship and we had another birthday dinner for him. Next year is the big 4-0, so I must start saving for the party now because he wants me to either rent out a Best Buy or Fry's or he wants his party on top of an aircraft carrier!!



Darren took me to the Griffith Observatory a few weeks ago to watch the sunset and then hang out to see all the city lights of L.A. I love that place, it's so beautiful. I want to go back and hike around there. This is Darren getting a close up shot of the moon from the massive telescope.



Then we participated in Lakewood Volunteer Day. I was a site captain and got to wear an incredibly bright green shirt and give everybody orders..I LOVED IT!! It became the joke of the day..."The Green Shirt Has Spoken." We cleaned an older lady's home who does not have the finances or the physical ability herself to do it. She doesn't have family either, so we became her family for a day. This is the before shot of her back yard.



This is the group shot before we started working. Notice how clean we are now! We were pretty gross when it was done. But it was really great to be there helping her.



An after shot...we totally cleared out her backyard.



After working all morning, we went to a rec center, "the Airplane Park" on Woodruff and the city served everyone lunch and had raffles, gave our prizes and stuff. It was fun. I won a five pound bag of Starbucks coffee. I'm not a big Starbucks fan and I drink one cup a day..that's going to last me some time. I even gave a couple pounds away. Then I got some coupons to It's a Grind! Yes, now we are talking! That's my coffee of choice!!



Here are some pics from the wedding of March 8th. This is the bride and groom, Rhonda and Daniel. Darren and I were in charge of getting some things from the church to the reception as well as taking Rhonda and Daniel's things to their room at the hotel (where the reception was held). I'm sure the Cherryholmes will never give Darren the keys to anything again...later in the evening Darren and Dan ran some flowers and things to the couple's room and short sheeted their bed. I'm surprised they didn't do more.



This is the church. It's beautiful, isn't it. It sits on a bluff right on the water and it was so clear that day. Perfect day for a wedding. We all kept commenting about how in the world do people listen to their pastor, you just want to gaze out the huge picture windows.



Some of our fellow table dwellers!! Lori and Alvin!



I love this picture of Dan and Terri.



Me and Darren - Darren did something he's never done before..at least not with me. He danced. That good ole Assembly of God boy danced. The song he chose to dance to was a song sort of like Shout, where basically everybody was just jumping up and down. I guess he figured he could handle that!! It was cute, and felt really foreign considering Darren and I have never danced together. We have slow danced a couple of times, but that's it. I love to dance, so this was a real treat for me! :o)



Michelle and Tim - we had fun taking pictures of them because Darren was trying to get it right because of the lighting, flash, low flash, all that and Michelle kept posing for us!! I'm totally not making fun of you Michelle - it was cute!! :o)



The table...they had beautiful table settings.

Okay, so there you go. For those of you who have been nagging, now STOP IT!!! :o)

Until next time...