Thankful!

So very thankful to all the veterans who have served this great country.
Here are just few that are related to me....above is my father who was a mechanic on a C130 in the Air Force

Those in uniform from left to right - Uncle Butch, cousin Wayne, Uncle Doug, Uncle JohnD, Aunt Kathy. Picture was taken at a Shurtz family reunion sometime in the mid80's.

My grandmother (Mary Shurtz) is in the middle along with two of my great grandmothers, Great Grandma Shurtz on the left and NaNa Foley on the right surrounded by my mother's siblings and her nephew who were all active duty at the time of this picture.

Siblings - Jason Shurtz is still active with the Navy and just returned from deployment, Heather Shurtz is now a civilian employed by the Navy (served 8 years active duty as a photographer for the Navy) and the eldest is Wayne Shurtz who just retired after serving 20 years in the medical field for the Navy.
My grandfather, Wayne Shurtz who was a pharmacist mate in the Navy.

Uncle Don Galloway who served during the Korean War in the US Army.

Grandfather, Wayne Shurtz on the left along with my uncle Wayne "Butch" Shurtz on the right.

Uncle John D who retired from the US Navy a few years ago. I believe this pic is from his retirement ceremony.

My cousin Brian who is still serving.

I have many more relatives who have or are still serving but I don't have pictures of them....just to name a few

Great Uncle Frank Shurtz, Navy
Great Uncle Jim Painter, Army
Great Uncle Ralph Galloway, Army
Uncle Shane Wheatley, Army
Cousin Nathan Shurtz, Marines
Cousin Steven Shurtz, Navy (active duty)
Cousin Tim Childress, Air Force
Cousin Kyle Painter, Army
Cousin Edgar Gillock, Army

I decorated the VFW in DuQuoin this morning, they're having a special ceremony for all WWII vets and are serving a meal throughout the day (which smelled wonderful!). My mother is an auxillary member and 'volunteered' me to decorate - based on everyone's reaction I have a feeling I'm decorating next year too. Here are a few pics of the decorations, they don't usually decorate the hall so I kept the decor somewhat simple.
I made the white sleeves around the flowers and glued the emblem from the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines onto the four sides. Ran red crepe paper down the middle of the tables that were covered in white film and cut stars from blue cardstock - stars and stripes. Purchased flag sets that include the American flag in the middle surrounded by the 5 branches of service flags inserted into a black pedestal. The flowers consisted of baby's breath that I sprayed blue, white & red carnations, mini red rose sprays, red tulips, red gerbera daisies, and white spider mums. American flags were added to the flower arrangements.

Sneak Peak @ Yellow & Black Wedding

Here is a sneak peak at the yellow and black wedding I decorated (with a LOT of help) this past weekend. Check out my decorating blog to see more......hopefully the photographer took pics once the wedding party arrived - I didn't!

Big THANKS!

Let me start by saying that the two wedding/receptions this past weekend KICKED by BUTT! I didn't attempt to get out of my bed until after 9am yesterday morning (I'm usually awake before 6 and out of bed by 7 at the latest even on weekends) and then moved in sloooooow motion all day yesterday.

Lindsey & Ben's "orange/beach" reception came together as I'd mentally pictured it, so I was happy. My only regret is that I ran out of time to get one of their wedding pictures professionally printed (aka NOT Walmart). Kris, the mother of the bride, was extremely happy and passed along how impressed everyone was with the decorations. The tables were covered in orange satin with sea shells scattered all over the tables and two alternating centerpieces - 1 floral and the other a candle set in sand.

The other wedding/reception this past weekend was the "yellow/lemon" reception set for 350 guests. Holy cow was it ever a LOT of work. When all was said and done though it was worth it - I think it's my favorite 'decorating' job thus far. I'd shown Ashlee & Bryan literally hundreds of pictures of black/white/yellow decorations that I downloaded from the internet, after a couple of meetings we settled on 3 alternating centerpieces and a few other elements to make their wedding special. I must say I think I nailed it dead on.

I owe a BIG THANKS to all who helped prep stuff the week before, setup on Friday, arrange flowers on Saturday, tear down late Saturday night and cleanup on Sunday - Mom, Dad, Johnathon (great helper with lots of energy!), Aunt Eileen (who hand washed every vase for me Sunday even thought I wanted to put them in the dishwasher), Brenda, Staci, Arielle, Bethany, Julie & Nina. Without a great support system there's absolutely no way I could do this! So thanks again!

Sorry there aren't any pictures yet, like I said I was spent yesterday. I did manage to accomplish a few things while moving in slow motion: rearranged the garage a little, segregated out what decorations I'll need for the wedding this weekend, put away a few items I won't be using again soon, and washed about 6 loads of tablecloths (only about 12 more loads to go - which I need this weekend!)

I have a full week but will try to get pictures posted soon.

PostVacation Chores

I know those of you who have been gone on vacation for over a week understand what it's like to return to EVERYTHING you must get done while you were gone. It always seems to me that I have 5 times more work that needs to be completed when I'm gone from work for a while, haven't quite figured out why that is yet. I realize I still owe you pictures from baseball season, Sesser 5K fun walk/run, vacation and Lindsey's wedding. The day we returned from Florida, Johnathon and Matthew entered into the end of season baseball tournament - like I could miss any of those games.

Then when baseball ended, Uncle JohnD and Aunt Kathy came for a visit from SanDiego. Of course we always eat well when we have company over and we had fried zucchini one nite which is probably one of my favorite foods. I think I can eat 2-3 zucchini by myself. Since they're fried we don't fix them often, so I made a pig of myself and quite frankly don't really care!! Oh did I mention I LOVE FRIED ZUCCHINI!

With not only the month ending while on vacation, but also the quarter and mid-year point as an accountant my full-time job workload has been crazy since I got back. I have to have the midyear analysis done and ready to present to the banks by next Tuesday which = 12 hour work days through the end of this month ends to get it all done. While in the mean time I have two weddings to decorate this weekend and one next weekend!
One wedding this weekend is black/white/yellow with lemons as the accent. here are a few of the 350 candy bags filled with lemon wedge candy that will be given to the guests.

I also had to do 225 orange candy bags for Lindsey's reception this weekend. I filled hers with orange & tangerine flavored 'salt water' taffy to go with the whole beach theme of her wedding in Destin, Florida - pretty smart don't you think.


Yesterday I received several shipments from FedEx and UPS. Actually they've been coming to my house like everyday for almost a week now. You should see my living/dining room - it's wedding central! Yesterday they brought me the following items:

50 yellow & white freesia
20 orange lilies
100 yellow static
120 yellow spider mums
60 white large calla lilies
20 mini white calla lilies
200 mini yellow calla lilies
400 yellow carnations (filler)
200 yellow roses
150 orange roses
50 hot pink roses
20 yellow garden roses
10 white garden roses
330 yellow snapdragons
4 field bunches of tree fern
3 field bunches of waxflower
The orange and hot pink are for Lindsey's reception, the yellow & white are for Ashlee & Bryan's black/white/yellow reception. Of course the all had to be unpacked, ends cut and bottom leaves removed before I put them in 5 gallon buckets of water to hydrate.

Last night in the midst of all the decorating prep, Aunt Eileen brought over Ben for a little photo session. Our first photo session was suppose to be 2 weeks after he was born, but he decided to go to stop breathing and visit the hospital instead - guess he was just camera shy. Well let me just say, taking pictures of high school seniors is a WHOLE lot easier than babies. That was a learning experience last night to say the least and now that he's not just a couple of weeks old he was too big to do most of the poses I wanted to do but not big enough to do the other one's I wanted to do. Plus I wanted to do some outside shots but once again it was raining here - that has got to stop. The sun is shining right now, maybe tonight I can squeeze in a few outdoor pictures?!

Well, that's pretty much what I've been up to since vacation. I'm getting ready to head out to get my hair cut uptown (going to be late if I don't wrap this up soon!) and then tomorrow the real decorating begins! I'm nervous in a good way and can't wait to share pictures of the receptions with you! Have a good weekend - mine will be without sleep, just not seeing where I'll have time for that! Good thing I LOVE coffee.

Late Thursday Night....

It's 11pm on Thursday evening.....the fresh flowers are taking a big drink in a couple of 5 gallon buckets in the dining room, my car is 90% packed and the silk floral arrangements to be placed on top of the columns at the church and reception are complete, well until I get up in the morning and tinker around a little more with them!

I took tomorrow off from work (my real job anyway) to help a friend decorate a wedding. The bride purchased most of the decorations that she wants to use at the reception herself, I'm just supplying the columns, head table decor and lights. We're decorating the reception hall and church tomorrow; Saturday morning I'll just have to do the wedding party flowers - the bridal bouquet, 4 bride's maids, 9 boutonnieres, 5 corsages and 1 toss bouquet. All will be made with fresh ivory roses that by the way are super duper thorny - lucky me.

Johnathon had a game this evening in Zeigler and again they won! They won big tonight 56-10. Our coach told the kids to not be so aggressive and give the other team a chance - gotta feel a little sorry for the other guys. After this wedding I should have time to edit and post the 1000 plus pictures I've taken of basketball this season. I won't post all 1000 plus pictures, but I will get some up soon. After I'm done playing with the thorny ivory roses Saturday morning, I have to get to the Sesser gym by 11:30 for Johnathon's last game of the season!! Not that this will end the sports pics. Track starts as soon as basketball is over and then summer baseball and then football and school baseball and then we're back to basketball and the cycle continues.

The wedding is then at 4:00pm and I'll have to of course clean up the church after the ceremony is over. I'm then going to attempt (time permitting) to photograph a cousin who is expecting her second child in a few weeks. She wants some "belly" shoots. Then I'll have to breakdown/cleanup the reception. Sunday I'm decorating a bridal show for my Aunt in Herrin. My only stipulation for this show was that we use the same color theme as the wedding....so all of the stuff from the wedding will stay in my car and I'll be packed and ready to go for the show on Sunday.

Monday my father is having partial knee replacement surgery on BOTH KNEES. Doesn't sound like much fun to me. He'll have to stay in the hospital for a few days before he gets to come home and then under goes weeks of therapy.

So if you don't hear from me for a couple of days you'll know why!

Ever After

I decorated the booth for Joyce's Bridal again this year for the annual Ever After Bridal Show. I think this was the best turn out they've had for the event since I've been decorating. I gave out a lot of business cards.....hopefully I'll get some business from it!!

Above is the completed booth, just didn't have the candles lit yet. With the exception of the mannequins and clothing, everything else was in my car!!

I really should have taken a pic of my car.

I made this sign Saturday night with my Cricut and vinyl sheeting. The longest part of the process was lining all the letters up on the canvas board. I'm happy with the way it turned out.

I love my Cricut. If you craft at all it's a very worthy investment. Actually I just recently upgraded to the largest Cricut and will be selling my smaller one....so if you know anyone interested. It's in excellent condition.

I was told we'd be using brown since it's still so popular and I made the suggestion to put lime/kiwi green with it. My suggestion wasn't met with much enthusiasm but I personally love the outcome of the green & brown. I think all involved were pleasantly surprised at how good the two colors look together. Just think what this would look like with fresh flowers....lime green hydrangea and button poms and green roses and and green goddess calla lily and bells of Ireland....

Arielle again modeled during the fashion show. I was really far away so my pics aren't that great but you'll get the idea. Of course she looked great....

Good news, while Arielle's pic was uploading I checked my email - I have two people who have contacted me from the show!!

YAHHHHHH!

Saturday Morning

It's Saturday morning and I'm drinking my second cup of coffee, sitting at my computer making out my mental to-do list for the weekend:

1) Wrap presents for Matthew's birthday party this afternoon. (My nephew is having a skating party for his birthday - he was 6 on Jan 15th - Happy Birthday Matthew!!) Oh and yes I will be skating....loved skating when I was younger....haven't been for a while but I'm sure it's like riding a bike!

2) Pack car for bridal show tomorrow (do wish the temp outside was above the single digits for this task - oh well). Items required (3) 7 ft columns, (2) 6 ft columns, (2) 6 ft poles to connect columns, (4) 4x6 net lights to hang from poles, (2) sheer curtains to mask lights,(2) 3 ft columns with mirror tops, (2) column topper floral arrangements in brown & kiwi green, (3) glass pedestal vases, (2) vase floral arrangements in brown & kiwi green, (1) 3" white floating candle disk, (8) mirror tiles, (9) 3" round vases with kiwi green 2" floating candles, (2) lrg round black wrought iron standing candelabras with white candle and floral ring, (2) 5-candle standing black wrought iron standing candelabras with white candles, (4) brown satin bows for candelabras, (4-5) sets of lights for under table's, brown & kiwi satin to swag front table and column's in background, extension cords, business cards, lighter, sign.

3) "Make" floral arrangements for the top of the columns and glass pedestal vases! I guess this should go before #2. Can't pack it in my car until it's done.

4) "Make" a sign with Cricut so that people walking by know that the booth is for "Joyce's Bridal" and the set design is by "Your Event Designer" aka me.

5) Make sure all satin to be used is un-wrinkled!

6) Attend the skating party in DuQuoin @ 2pm today.

7) Tomorrow I'll need to be in Marion by 8am when the event center doors open to start the decorating process. We'll have 3 1/2 hours to have the booth presentable with 1/2 hour to change clothes and make thyself presentable. The bridal show will last for four hours, then break down/cleanup, unpack the car and put everything back into the garage and I should be back in my pajama's somewhere between 7 & 8 tomorrow evening. I plan to get some sushi before I head home tomorrow evening for supper.

8) Take pictures of booth.

9) Take pictures of Arielle who will be modeling at the bridal show.

I had intended to go into work this morning before the B'day party but when I started to really think about everything I need to do today I decided my sanity would best be kept if I stayed at home. Of course now I'm stressed out about what I was going to do at work today that obviously won't get done....need to let it go - it'll just have to wait until next week.

Considering my to-do list, guess I need to get with it and off of here.
Have a great weekend!