Our weekend

Our weekend included most of my favorite things-good friends, good food, crafts and most importantly watching our Ava play basketball!

Friday was the Garden Club's annual Greens sale  I am the president and I helped organize the event.  I should say we have many, many dedicated members that help with our annual greens sale.  It is the biggest fundraiser that we have all year.  For the event we made 140 arrangements and 50 wreaths and swags.  Our members started last Monday (the Monday following Thanksgiving) making the arrangements and wreaths.  Since I work full time I popped over on my lunch to help make arrangements.  I also coordinated a Tuesday night session where our members who work could come and help make arrangements.  During the sale I help with the luncheon.  Here I am with the rest of the "lunch ladies."

I made this sign to advertise what we were having for lunch.  We kept it simple (like they've done it for many years) soup and sandwiches. 

The arrangements and wreaths were so beautiful!  Here are some of the ones our members made. 

I loved this quirky wreath.  My friend Wendy bought it and took it home for her front door.  It is perfect for her!

I bought this small Christmas tree in a turquoise pot with turquoise Christmas balls.  Turquoise is my favorite colors so I was happy to buy this one.

Saturday Rachael and I hosted a wreath making and kissing ball classes for our small business Branch and Bloom. I will post pictures about our classes on Crafty Wednesday.

Friday night and Saturday Ava had a basketball tournament.  Since Ava was in the Czech Republic last year she missed the basketball season.  It has been so long since we've seen her play for her school.  It was great to have her back on the court!  My friend Lynn takes amazing action shots so I am going to do a post tomorrow full of pics from the tournament.  

Here are a couple of my favorites :)

First day of school

It was back to school day for Ava today.  She is starting her sophomore (junior) year.  I wrote it like that because she can graduate in two years with her class or she can stay an extra year and finish her math and science requirements that she missed when she studied abroad in the Czech Republic last fall. 

We also have an exchange student from Taiwan living with us this fall. Grace was excited and happy to start school today too!  

I hope they have a great first day!  I am going to pick them up right after school and I can't wait to hear all about it.

Xoxo

Prom Night

This weekend Ava went to her first prom!  She went with her boyfriend Ethan who goes to a different school than Ava.   The prom was held on Saturday night and we spent Saturday getting her all ready to go. I had so much fun helping her get ready.  Her friend Mary did her makeup and took pictures for us and my friend Rachael did her hair.   It was perfect.  She had the best time!!

Her friend Mary did her make up early in the day and then Ava and I headed to my friend Rachael's so she could do her hair.  Rachael is a hair dresser and she cuts and colors my hair for me every time I get it done.  Ava goes to her too.   She loves doing hair but she hates doing up do's.  Ava's was actually the first up do she's ever done!  I think she did a fabulous job!

Here's the after.  I think her hair turned out great.  Thank you Rachael!!

Last month we went and got her dress.  She wanted something simple-no ruffles, no sequins and nothing sparkly.  We found the perfect dress for her at Boscov’s department store.  It was black and simple and she just loved it!

Graig, Grandma Jan and I went for Ava to take pictures at Ethan's grandma's house.  She has a beautiful house with a huge front porch. It was perfect for taking pictures.

Of course we all  took lots and lots of pictures.  We all  had such a good time with Ethan's family and his friends.  

Here are some pictures Ava's friend Mary took for us.  These turned out so beautiful.

Here is the girl behind the camera.  We love Mary and are so thankful that she and Ava are best friends.  

It was a fabulous night for our Ava!

Xoxo

Friday Favorites

Today is the best day of the week! It's Friday and I am joining with Andrea, Erika, and Narci to share my Friday favorites from this week.  This week FLEW by   Tonight I have my monthly craft class for Branch and Bloom and tomorrow is graduation at the College where G and I work!  We are both going to be working at the graduation ceremonies.  I just love seeing our graduates and their families.  It's such a happy day.   Saturday night I am going to a birthday dinner for my friend T and on Saturday G, Ava and I are going to Mother's Day brunch.  It should be a great weekend!

1.  I took Ava to the doctor's office yesterday and we stopped by the annual art show at the hospital. All of the artwork from the elementary schools and the high school are displayed for about a month at the hospital.  We always went every year to see B and A's artwork.  Since Ava is taking a ceramics class in high school her art work was there this year.  It was fun to see her piece.

2.  We have been working hard packing and cleaning this week because next week we move into our summer house.  It's not fancy it's just a little white ranch house that we bought last year but we love it!  During the school year we have college students that live there.  Our plan is to clean it out and move in next week.  Eventually G and I will move to our little white ranch house full time.  

3.  We are also in the process of buying this house to update/paint and we will use this house as a rental house.  This house has two-two bedroom apartments (one upstairs and one downstairs) .  This house looks like a wreck now but hopefully by the end of the summer we will have it in tip top shape to rent out.  Funny story-we owned this house and sold it in 2006. I wanted to get out of the rental house business when our kids were younger because we were so busy with them now that they are grown we are  getting back in it.

4.  Next weekend I am going on a trip to Washington DC with my girlfriends to see the LA Dodgers play the Nationals.  My friend V's nephew is on the Dodgers team and I am so excited to watch him play again.  We went last year to Cleveland to watch him play.  This year we are going to watch two games and do some sightseeing in DC.  I can't wait!!

5.  Tonight is our May craft night for Branch and Bloom.  We are going to be making three DIY sugar scrubs!  My friend Rachael is a sugar scrub queen so she is teaching the class.  I am looking forward to learning how to make them. 

6.  Last year I got this chalkboard letter kit and I really want to get it out and start learning how do draw on all my chalkboards.  I usually have my friend Stephanie write on my chalkboards for me but I want to learn how to do it myself.

That's my Friday favorites for this week.  I hope you have a great weekend!
xoxo

Our weekend

We had another fun and busy weekend this past weekend.  I love the weekends and this past weekend was a lot of fun.  We had our annual end of the year town/college festival, I got together with some friends and I took Ava to buy a dress for the prom.  I am exhausted just reading everything we did this weekend. 

Saturday morning I got up bright and early to help with the annual festival that the College where I work hosts for the community.  We started our day with a big breakfast and I took a picture of the student volunteers.  They worked so hard from bright and early in the morning until late at night on Saturday to make the festival a success.  

My friend Rachael and her family had an Earth Day celebration at their organic grocery store so I raced over to the store to see her and get one of the amazing organic earth day cookies that she had made for the event.  They were SO good!!

Saturday afternoon Ava and I went to get pedicures together and that was so fun.  I love spending time with our girl!  She also loves driving us every where we go.  It's been fun (and a little stressful!) having another driver in our house.

Saturday night I worked backstage at the festival concert.  The performer this year was A Boogie wit da Hoodie.  My friend Amy and her son came backstage to he could meet A Boogie.  I asked Ava is she wanted to go backstage but she wasn't interested-ha ha!

All the "old people backstage" took a picture with A Boogie 

There were SO many people at the concert.  I took this picture of all the people from backstage.  A Boogie wanted everyone to hold up their phones with their flashlights on.  It looked so cool from where I was standing.  

I left the concert early and raced to my friend D's house for a little get together.  I made my cowboy caviar and it was a huge hit!!  I have been so busy lately so it was nice to catch up with my friends.

Sunday I left bright and early and took Ava to Albany to look for prom dresses!!  She tried on SO many dresses at 3 different stores.  She finally settled on this simple black dress.  She loves it and is comfortable in it and I am so happy that she is happy!!  My friend Rachael went dress shopping with us and it was good to get her opinion on the dresses. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory and made a fun day of it!  

I hope you had a great weekend!!

Xoxo

Ava {winter photo shoot}

One of Ava’s best friend is a budding photographer.  She took family pictures for us last summer and she has taken senior pictures for graduating seniors.  .  She wanted to take pictures of Ava in a new spot she found for taking photographs. Ava was thrilled to help her out and I was thrilled to see the beautiful pictures she took.  

Here is one of the pictures she took for our family last summer. 

.  

Here are some of my favorite pictures she took of Ava last week.

I love these specials pictures of our girl and I will cherish them forever!

Xoxo 

Ava’s home!

Our Ava is home from the Czech Republic!!  She decided to come home a few months early from her year long exchange.  I am sad that she didn't stick it out until the end but she has been so homesick for months so we made the right decision to have her come home early.  She had some amazing experiences-she visited Hungary, Austria, Poland and Slovakia.  She got to visit the world famous Christmas Markets in Austria, she visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland and she visited Budapest in Hungary.  She also went to Prague four times during her stay in the Czech Republic.

She stayed with two host families during her time in Czech and she loved them both so much. I still stay in touch with her first host family and her second family was just as nice.  Both sent us pictures and updates via Facebook.  I am forever grateful to both of those families for loving our girl and caring for her while she was in Czech.

Ava took a lot of stuff to  Czech and she bought a lot of clothes and souvenirs when she was over there.  I wasn't sure everything was going to fit in her suitcases but thankfully everything did!  Here she is after packing everything up. She was thrilled she didn't have to leave anything behind.

Ava's second host family took her to the airport.  They were a lovely family and she spent the Christmas holiday with them.  Czech has some interesting Christmas traditions and I am so grateful that she got to experience those customs and traditions with this family.  One of the traditions involves keeping a Carp fish in the bathtub for a few days and then killing the fish and eating it on Christmas eve.

Going to catch her plane in Prague.

I had already made plans to be in Florida so Graig and Grandma Jan picked Ava up from the airport in Philadelphia.  She was SO happy to be home!!

We are so happy our girl is home.  She will be home for a few days and then she starts school next week.  I am so thankful to have her home and I am thrilled she had this experience.  It was an adventure she will never forget.

Xoxo