I'm still not ready to post photos of our May 21st day at the temple and our open house that same evening. Although I took a few pictures with my own camera, our "official" photographers were our friends Eugene and Wyndie, and we haven't seen their handiwork yet. (Something to do with their son Monte's high school graduation and a family vacation at Disneyland before Monte reports to the Mission Training Center in Utah on July 6th...)
However, I do have some pictures I can share now. I took a lot of shots of our decorations and our preparations. (Remember you can enlarge any picture by clicking on it.)
Being a very visual person, I drew out my plan for the table decorations (above). It not only helped me visualize how I wanted them to look, it also helped me figure out what I needed to bring with me so I wouldn't have to keep running home or to the store for forgotten items. In that respect I was pretty successful.
How do you think I did in bringing my drawings to life?
The Guest Book Table at the entrance.
(Couldn't find a feather pen!)
The Cake and Punch Table. Crystal did an incredible job
on the cakes, and they were delicious, too! See the close-up below.
I'm so glad Crystal came up with the M&M theme for the Guest Tables!
I think they came out great! This, of course, is the Red M&M Table.
The Blue M&M Table. We had about 70 guests, and I heard several people
make comments like, "Did you notice we're at the Blue Table?"
The Yellow M&M Table.
The Green M&M Table.
We actually had room for an extra table, so we had TWO
Orange M&M Tables.
And, finally, the Brown M&M Table!
Here's the whole room with all 7 tables.
The trickiest parts were finding the colored cloths to match the candies and 14 glass bowls to hold the M&Ms and honey-roasted peanuts at each table. I finally found 12" x 18" fabric remnants in a bin at WalMart, and the bowls came from thrift shops and dollar stores all over town for about $1.00 each.
This table for the cheese and crackers and fruit salad was near
the cake and punch table. Crystal made the adorable watermelon bowls!
This is my friend Crystal herself, hard at work on the punch:
ginger ale colored blue with Boo Berry Punch Kool-Aid
and chunks of peach sherbet floating in the punch. Very tart!
We also had pink lemonade and raspberry lemonade available.
They were very popular!
Here's the close-up of the three sheet cakes! Crystal decorated them
with fresh flowers and strings of tiny pearls along the sides.
Inside was moist white cake and mouth-watering raspberry filling.
The topping was my favorite, whipped cream frosting!
A week earlier, we'd jokingly told the full-time missionaries that we'd feed them
if they came to help. They showed up an hour early and worked tirelessly at
filling platters with deviled eggs, cheese and crackers, and ham and turkey rollups!
We were just kidding, but now I don't know what we'd have done without them!
Ed and Dylan (age 13) work side-by-side in the kitchen before the guests arrive.
The guests began to arrive and enjoyed a light buffet.
Our guests began to arrive right at 7:00. As the tables began to fill, we greeted everyone and invited them to enjoy the feast. Besides the hors d'ouevres we'd prepared ourselves and the gorgeous cakes Crystal provided, Crystal had also supplied finger sandwiches, potato salad, pasta salad, and fruit salad. It was sumptuous, and there was enough left over to feed our family for the entire following week!
It was an amazing day followed by a wonderful evening. Soon I hope to have pictures to share of the day's events and those who celebrated with us. As always, stay tuned!
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