Harvest Party 2012

Another great year of Harvest Party at our church! I believe I heard that around 1700 people came through our doors. That is lower than the past couple of years, but to me that is okay. There are probably a lot of other churches and businesses doing this kind of thing on the same night as our church, so that probably keeps the numbers lower. At the same time, those lower numbers make for less crowded hallways, and no long waiting times for Treat Street, or the hay ride.

Roger did not have to work the parking lot this time like he has had to for several years--yay! Instead, he and I worked in the kitchen handing out concessions to customers during second shift. Our job was to stand at the window and call out orders to the food prep workers and then we would hand out the orders to customers. For one of the first times in my life I was told I was not loud enough for the prep team to hear me! What? Seriously? I've usually been told I am the opposite--too loud and need to tone it down a bit. Oh well, I raised my voice, but felt I was yelling, though.

For first shift, we took Lauren around to all of the activities at the church. Evan has grown out of wanting to participate in all of the activities, and instead chose to work all night. For first shift he was a worker with one of the inflatables and second shift he helped clean up tables. The kitchen and inflatables are all in the sanctuary, so while Roger, Evan, and I were working second shift, Lauren was able to keep herself busy playing on all of the inflatables. It worked out great. One of our friends came up to us and told us he was proud of Evan for working the tables. Then, at the end of the night the same friend approached Evan and told him how proud of him he was. Then, the next morning, I heard that our friend approached our youth pastor and told him how proud of Evan he was. Wow! All of that was so good to hear about our son.

Busy Holiday Weekend

Thursday night I went to one of Roger's work parties. I usually dread these because I don't know anybody, and they usually talk about nothing but work. However, this party was really fun. It was held at the Hilton by the airport. They started off the party by doing a wife swap. They would call a man's name, and then a woman's name and they had to pair up and be a team to play the games that were there. There was billiards, basketball hoops, darts, ping pong, video games, and a laser shooting game. My name was the first woman's name called, and I was paired up with someone that was sitting at our table that I was already getting to know as he and his wife chatted with Roger and I. He was very competitive, but so am I, so it was fun. We didn't get to play all the games. I stunk at the shooting game. Did not bad at darts. And the only other game we got to was billiards and I am happy to say that I shot in 4 of our striped balls, and sunk the 8 ball to win the game for us! The food was delicious--I had mahi mahi. At the end of the night everyone got to choose gift cards starting with the team that won the most games. My team only won 2 games. The most someone won was 9, so they got to choose a gift card first. Roger chose a Lowe's card and I chose an Olive Garden card. Both of these will definitely be used by our family.

Friday night was another work party. This time we met at a country club close to Roger's work, or about 45 minutes away from our house. Again, the food was delicious--I had a pork chop. I got to meet more people Roger worked with, and this party was only talking with people at our table. At both of these parties I saw a real difference between the people Roger used to work with and the people he works with now. The people he works with now are a lot friendlier, and like to talk about other things than just work. They seem to be more down to earth. I really had a couple of nice evenings.

Saturday we took the kids to see the lights at Botanica. I've heard really good things about this event. It started at 5:30 and we decided to be there around 5:00 so we could get there early and get it over with quickly before the temperatures got too chilly after the sun went down. Although the lights were pretty, we weren't that impressed. First of all, even though we have a membership to Botanica, we only saved $1 per adult for the admission price. One garden only had lights shaped in poinsettia flowers. One garden only had lights shaped like butterflies flapping their wings. One garden only had tree trunks wrapped in white lights with a couple of lighted deer within the trees. There were two displays where the lights moved in time to music, but to be honest, we have seen better displays like this in neighborhood homes. We did take a few pics of things, and even though it all looks pretty, overall, we felt it was something we can say we have done, but really don't have the desire to do again--at least not for several years or until they create more variety of lights in the gardens.

Santa was in the cottage that you can enter after going through the butterfly house. Lauren absolutely did not want to see him and kept hiding behind me and Roger. We told her she didn't have to see him, but once we got up to him, Santa talked her into getting a pic taken with him.

There were several chimineas along the paths we could stop at and get warmed up.

In the barn in the children's garden we bought some hot chocolate. It really does keep you warm as you walk around the outside chilly air drinking it.

They had the little house in the children's garden decorated really cute.

There is just something about a train that attract kids. This display was by the greenhouse.

This was the garden with the poinsettia light displays. The fountain was really pretty. You can see the luminaries dotting the path.

 A huge wreath in the butterfly house.

These lighted trees were really tall, even though it looks like from this pic that it is just a small display we are standing in front of. This area was roped off, so we couldn't get closer to it.

 

Then, last night we took a free 1 hour bus tour to see some neighborhood lights. We saw some pretty impressive house displays. But, really didn't get any good opportunities to take pics. It was a busy weekend, but a fun one.

Work Work Work

After spending a day traveling to the towns where our work site and hotel site were, the next few days were hard work. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning we would arrive at the job site at 8 am and leave at 5 pm, except leaving after lunch for Paris on Thursday. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about what the pictures are showing, but our team worked on tearing down wallpaper, tearing down walls, painting, putting up textured wallpaper, electrical wiring, mudding and patching, and building a stage.

I was on the team that worked in the hall and stairwell taking down wallpaper.

The walls up the stairs to the second floor were quite high. In order to reach the wallpaper, the guys had to make a homemade scaffold. At the top of the stairs on the 2nd floor landing was put a step stool. Then a very high ladder was put on about the fourth step from the bottom. Across these two ladders were put some boards so the men could stand on them in order to be able to spray the wallpaper with water and scrape it off. The following pics do a better job of showing you what I am trying to explain. I stood by the bottom of the tall ladder and kept an eye on those boards to make sure they didn't start to shift and slip through the rungs.

 

On another day, some of the guys put up a textured wallpaper onto these same walls. Once this paper was put up, it would be painted. I guess this is pretty common in Europe.

 Two and a half of my days were nothing but painting the basement. There were 4 large rooms that had to be primed on the walls and ceilings and then painted. These walls were all holey, porous cement--not smooth drywall. But, before painting could begin, some electrical wiring and mudding and patching had to be done.

A few walls upstairs were torn down and some new ones built to expand the sanctuary on the main floor. This is where Roger spent most of his time. There are no wooden stud frames built for walls. They glue large, heavy gypsum blocks onto each other just like you would bricks.

You can see in this pic where a wall was knocked down and all of the space behind it was a separate room. That space would be turned into a stage which you will see in upcoming pics. This lengthened the sanctuary.

Hauling out all of the rubble.

 Another wall knocked down. A new one was built a few feet back adding width to the sanctuary.

 

 

 

Another wall knocked down that would be rebuilt a few feet back to widen the sanctuary. You can see how it came up to this pillar and in the next pic, it has been knocked down showing the space between the pillar and a bathroom wall.

Any rubble/trash we had would be piled up in this area on the sidewalk in front of the church. I wish I'd gotten a pic of the mountain of rubble that grew here.

New walls.

Building and wiring the stage.

A before, middle, and after shot of the sanctuary.

On our half day of Thursday, since the dungeon painting was done, we Cinderellas set about cleaning up wherever we could.

Here is our awesome team.