ScrappinGalz Cafe

Crop for Healing $urprises Everyone

                                 

Well Crop for Healing ended yesterday.  It was such a wonderful time again, seeing our alumni as well as many new faces.

On Saturday we were able to meet a Healing Garden client who would be accepting the check on behalf of the Healing Garden at our Saturday night dinner.  It was so nice to meet her.  I took her around to visit all our ladies.

                                

During the day we gave away our door prizes and had a ton of fun seeing what our wonderful sponsors gave us this year to give away.  In total we gave away 43 door prizes all valued at $10+.

                                          

In the evening we had our annual bbq dinner which was provided to us by Uncle Pete's BBQ of Revere MA.  As ususal it was super yummy and everyone got stuffed.

After dinner I gave a quick little speech and then got right too introducing our spcial guest of honor for the check presentation. 

                               

I told the girls in these tough economic times I wasn't sure if CFH would reach the goal that I had had in my head.  I told them how tough it was to get donations for the goody bags and door prizes.  Then without further ado I presented a "check" to our friend from the Healing Garden.  And then the dining hall went wild!  We broke our last year's record by over $1000.  I was so happy.

                                 

Yes you are seeing correctly.  Crop for Healing made $6250 for the Healing Garden.

After our check presentation we took our annual group shot and as usual squished everyone together in order to take the picture. 

                                  

Once back in our cropping room we kept the excitement going by drawing the Stampin Up raffel bag winners and the two grand prize winners. 

                           

                                        Tote Filled with Products and a Cricut

 

Congratulations to all our winners this year, especially the women at the Healing Garden who are currently battling breast cancer.

In Pink Ribbon Fellowship

Crop for Healing 2008 begins!

Today started Crop for Healing 2008. Every year for the past three years I have put on this three day crop to benefit the Healing Garden, a breast cancer support community in Harvard, MA. This year we have 40 women again and wow do they have energy.

    

I on the other hand am ready to fizzle. I have traveled the one and a half hours one way three times this week during the week and did another trip today between home and the hotel. First I brought the soda and drinks that were donated, then the food, then the donations and today the roses and I picked up DD from school and did some last minute shopping for the ice cream social we had tonight and the salad to go with the dinner.

After the ladies got here we did our annual Champagne toast and had some really cool hot appetizers of mini quiches and puff pastries. My nerves were on high and I probably could have finished a whole bottle by myself LOL! Then we got ourselves situated and had a few hours before our pizza dinner.

Boobah our mascot got his own t-shirt this year and his own goody bag. The ladies had so much fun dressing him up in his shirt and then boobah picked up his scissors and started to scrap!

                             

After dinner, DD presented a speech on being a kid who had a mom with breast cancer; and then we got to see a wonderful video on the Healing Garden.

                                 

When we got back to the ballroom, we did our Yankee swap. It was so much fun and there were some wonderful gifts! The ladies had a great time doing the swap.

                                   

After the swap our favorite Denise picked up some navy men and brought them to the crop. We had fun taking pictures of them and thanking them for their service. Denise did this last year as well. That girl just loves kidnapping sailors! LOL

                                    

Speaking of my gal Denise, get a load of the outfit she and her pal put together.  I love it!  Last year's CFH tshirt, pink lounge pants, socks with pink ribbons and pink slippers with pink ribbons on them.  Don't they look so cute?  They are our twins this year.

                        

We had a terrific sundae social with Girl Scout thin mint cookie ice cream, espresso chip ice cream and some yummy toppings. We have done a couple of door prizes already (we have 43 this year) and we have a lot more fun planned for tomorrow, including the presentation of the check to the Healing Garden and the grand prize drawings.

I hope you all are having a great weekend.  Maybe next year you should think about joining us!

Our Annual Mother Daughter Weekend

Each year my daughter and I head out for a weekend of adventure on Columbus Day weekend.  This year we decided on the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. 

The trip started out fine.  We met my mom at King Arthur Flour in Norwich Vermont and had a great time shopping and having a lovely lunch outside.  DD and my mom hammed it up for this pic.

                                  

Well after we left King Arthur we headed North toward our final destination of the NorthEast Kingdom.  We stopped along the way to take lots of pictures.

                                

We decided to stop for a tour at Cabot Creamery home of Cabot Cheese.  So here we are going along, stopping to take pictures of all the wonderful fall colors; the reds, the oranges, the yellows.  We just about get to Cabot when all of a sudden my car starts sputtering.  I look down at the guages and the battery light is on.  So I gun the stupid car and get into the parking lot of Cabot.  So ok I know enough that I need to call AAA and get someone to get me to a fix it shop. 

  So I call AAA and they ask me where I want it towed to and I said I have no idea I'm not from the area.  So the brain child on the other end say, well you can take it to Sears in St Johnsbury where you can get it fixed.  So ok (more about that later) I'll go to Sears.  Oh and brain child #1 says the tow truck will be picking me up within an hour. 

  So DD and I sit and wait....and wait.... and wait...and after an hour and fifteen, the lady from the gift shop comes out and starts yelling my name...she has a message for me, the tow company will be here in 45 minutes.  Ok well there isn't much I can do about it so we wait some more.

While we waited we took some time to get these funny pics

 

Finally the flat bed gets there and we get everything all loaded up and he asks me where I want it towed to.  Arghhhhhh just take it someplace where I can get it fixed!  So I tell him that the guy at AAA said there is a Sears in St Johnsbury.  So off we go to St Johnsbury.  A half hour later we are on the outskirts of St. J's and the driver pulls over to get some gas, and so I think "it's getting late I better call Sears and let the know we are coming"  Fast forward calling 411 and such...I get on the phone with the guy from Sears who informs me that they don't have a automotive center like the guy from AAA said!  I'll have to find another place.  So we ask the guy at the service station where we were getting diesel for the rig..Yea he knows a guy, call him.  So I call him...nope they are gone for the weekend.  Well there is another guy in another town call him...So after trying three numbers for the guy, yep he can do it but not until Tuesday.  Well I am supposed to be at work on Tuesday!  So he tells me to call Walmart.  So I do, well they can't fix alternators so the guy says to try this other guy.  So by this time its getting late and all I want to do is get to the b & b.  So the tow driver says ok he will take me yet another 40 minutes to the Bed and Breakfast.  So yep you guessed it, we arrived in style (as DD put it), in the cab of a flat bed with the truck on the back!

We arrived at Angie's Bed and Breakfast and wow was it beautiful.  The lovely owner Louise let us use her kitchen that night since we didn't have a car to get to a dinner place.  Thankfully DD and I had been to a farmer's market earlier that day to get veggies and Elk sausages. 

                                  

                                  

The next day we had a wonderful day walking around the bed and breakfast's 82 acres and just spending the day with each other.  Called my mom on the other side of the state and found an alternator for my car.  Then in the afternoon DD and I got to borrow the innkeeper's car and we went to a wildlife preserve in Island Pond, VT.  Too bad we didn't even see a bird in the wildlife preserve!  In the evening,  mom delivered the alternator and then we all went to dinner.  On the way home from dinner we finally saw our first signs of wildlife.  We saw two deer.  They were the largest does I have seen in a long time.

The next morning during breakfast, the innkeeper's mechanic came by to pick up my truck and take it back to the garage to fix it.  An hour and $55 later the truck was back on the road. DD and I were soooo happy!

Once we were on our way, we decided to make a stop in St. Johnsbury in order to go to the Science Museum there and Maple Grove Farms.  MGF makes those yummy maple candies everyone loves so much.  We even got to take a tour of the candy making factory.  At the end we got to sample the yummy candy and some maple syrup.

                                    

After visiting the factory we decided to head on downtown and do some shopping and grab some lunch. 

So that was our crazy weekend.  Some trials, lots of adventure, definately one of the best weekend vacations we have ever taken.  I just hope when we head back up to Angie's Bed and Breakfast during the Christmas holidays we won't have any more truck trouble!  LOL  I want to snowshoe and ski in peace!

Still Missing .....

Just wanted to give a quick update that alot of my construction is done and now I just have to take a ton of boxes to the storage facility and clean on up.  But all that is being put on hold for the weekend.  Columbus Day weekend is our annual mother daughter weekend.  This year we are heading up to the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont to stay in a bed and breakfast and do some hiking and some moose hunting (with our cameras of course!).  We head up tonight to spend the night with a friend in central Vermont and then we start our day tomorrow by going to King Arthur Flour's main store in Norwich Vermont.  Since the B & B has wi-fi I should be able to post some pictures over the weekend of our travels.

For those of you who have been keeping up with my work with Crop for Healing....the Tshirts are finished and I pick them up on Tuesday.  yippee.  The hotel is donating a ton of soda (one less thing for me to spend crop money on) but I still haven't heard from BJ's as to our gift certificate.  Hopefully it will come thru.  Right now it looks like we will be able to give the Healing Garden at least $4,000.  If I continue to get some donations I am hoping we can match last year and get them another $5,000.

Have a great weekend!