Costuming

I don't get invited to parties. That's not an "Oh woe is me" statement. I'm always uncomfortable at a party, anyway, unless I know people willing to let me hang around with them. I don't do the wander up and commence speaking very well. I can hold my own in a conversation, but initiating it is not something I'm remotely comfortable doing. Plus, as I've aged, the idea of a party where the entertainment is standing around talking while eating and drinking, is not appealing. I far prefer parties where we play games. And, I don't have friends in the area who do parties where I feel comfortable.

So, I read of others' Halloween parties and am happy for them it was well attended and happy for me that I stayed home. But, I'm going to Disney World in October and part of the trip is to attend Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. I'm looking forward to it.

One of the things you can do is come in costume. That's something of a conundrum for me. I did a minion costume years ago because I had a rheumatology appointment on Halloween, but I haven't dressed up since. I still have all the pieces to do that costume. Then, my friend, Meredith sent me to JoAnn Fabrics by showing me pajamas in minion designs at Wal*Mart. Remember, I came home with two fabrics and a pattern for a shirt. I could wear the minion hat and one of the two shirts I intend to make, maybe get some white gloves. I could keep a crib sheet with me which has "minion speak" on it and reply to comments with minion-ese. All it would cost is the money and time to make the shirts.

In order to get to the shirts, I needed to finish the jacket I cut out last year but never sewed. I'm notorious for grand ideas which never get finished, but I've simply told myself no minion shirt until the jacket is done. I've actually made steady progress on the jacket. I have help.

Every outfit must have cat hair on it.

It goes together fairly quickly, with long seams joining front to back.

The hard part is the trim. It's a wide band which can be in the same color, but is shown with a different color. I decided on black satin. I'm very pleased with the result.

The trim has to be lined. I am used to fusible interfacing; which is easy to apply. But I worried satin wouldn't take very well to the heat and steam needed to properly fuse the interfacing to the stain. I worried that I'd wind up with very distinct iron imprints in the satin. A friend who actually makes costumes said that wouldn't be the main problem. Satin would pucker as the interfacing cooled. So, it was sew-in interfacing.

This brought up another issue. Did I have any? I pulled out the box marked "Interfacing and sewing assists". There was a bit on top in the box, but not nearly enough to put interfacing in all the trim you see. Then, I spied a bag on the floor of the closet. Inside was more interfacing than I needed for a dozen jackets, including sew-in. I'd purchased interfacing to go with the minion shirts, but that's going at the bottom of the pile. I need to use up some of the other pieces I have. Oh the problem of accumulation in the life of a sewer. Do I or don't have have enough interfacing or the right color of thread. Better buy some just in case. I have to stop "just in casing".

I encountered an issue at the neck. I don't know if I didn't cut the right pattern piece or what, but the trim band at the neck was not large enough to go around the neck without making pleats in the jacket neckline. I dug out the pattern and I seem to have cut out the right piece. I tried pinning several different ways, but none of them worked. I decided I needed to cut a rectangle piece to pin across the back of the neck. Digging out the leftover satin, I discovered someone had peed on it. I have no idea when, but the odor was unmistakable. I cut two squares, tossed the rest in the wash, and hand washed the pieces I needed. I sliced the neck piece in half, sewed this extension into the trim and finished pinning the trim to the jacket. The other piece went into the facing of the trim since you use the same pieces for the facing. It fit fine with an additional 3 inches of fabric. With this being black satin, you won't suspect this piece wasn't supposed to be there to begin with.

The next step was to prepare the facing. I did the same thing with the facing as I did with the trim; added the additional 3 inches. I'm sitting in the recliner, Mija purring next to me, and I'm having problems getting the facing to match around the bottom of the jacket. Something is off. I unpin the facing and lay it flat on the table.

When I was pinning the facing pieces together, I twisted one side of the bottom facing when sewing the pieces together. I was quite frustrated and had to set the project aside. How could I have missed this? Taking a seam apart is a problem, but doing it on satin was double trouble. It's easy to make the satin look awful when you have to remove seams. I couldn't cut another piece because the fabric was in the middle of the laundry chute and I really don't know if I can adequately remove the smell. I'm hopeful because there's enough satin to do something else with if I can salvage it. What to do. What to do.

I finally decided to use fusible interfacing to save the piece. This is the facing. It won't be primarily visible. This is also along the bottom inside of the jacket. I'm not going for a prize here. I'm going for having it done. So, I cut the facing apart, took a hunk of fusible interfacing and "fused" the two pieces together, after making sure I had them untwisted. The fused pieces didn't pucker as much as I was expecting, thankfully, so they pinned nicely onto the trim.

Once the facing and the trim were sewn together, you need to understitch the facing to make sure it doesn't roll forward. I remember, from my high school sewing days, that understitching was recommended for all facings but you rarely see it in the instructions. This jacket has that step. I clipped the curves and decided the best thing to do would be to pin the facing to the seam to make understitching easier.

In doing this, I encountered another problem, my RA. July was a tough month for me. There were bouts of achy joints. I haven't had it cause problems with my cross-stitch or sewing until now. I would hold the facing to the left, smooth it, and with the right hand, pin it in the direction I was going to sew. The holding and smoothing put more stress on my left wrist than I was expecting. After pinning half of the facing, I couldn't do anymore. The pain was too great. I wound up pinning the rest of the facing over two days and understitching last night.

This is where the jacket is today.

I need to press the facing to the inside. I'm going to add gold braid at the junction of the trim and the jacket, because, why not. That will pick up the gold in the bow ties of the cats. I should be able to stitch down the facing at the same time I attach the braid. The hem on the sleeves is just a simple 5/8 inch hem, but I'm thinking of looking through my trim box to see if I have any black seam binding. I think that would look great. I need to sew a "Made by" label on the neck facing, too.

There's hard pinning upcoming with attaching the braid so I have to be mindful of how my wrists and fingers feel. I really wanted gold piping but that's not made anymore, at least JoAnn Fabrics didn't have gold piping. I didn't want to spend $20 in gas searching for something which didn't exist. I probably could have found it on the Internet, and given how long it's taken me to get this far, I wouldn't have been waiting on something to complete the jacket, but what I got is distinctive.

So now my costume for Mickey's party has changed. I was going to bring this jacket to Disney anyway. I could put a pink shirt under it and wear it with black jeans, which I was planning on packing anyway. Then, I could get black cat ears on a headband. The Halloween costume stores which spring up around the holiday should be opening soon and I'm positive I can get black cat ears.

I don't know what to do. Minion or black cat. Minion or black cat. I guess I see how quickly the minion shirt goes together and how it looks.

Almost done.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

A New Goal

Next year, my little guild in World of Warcraft turns 10 years old. Lasting that long in a video game is notable. We need to do something as a guild, something big and splashy. So I put this to the guild's Facebook page. Things were suggested but what stuck was a Walt Disney World vacation.

I started talking with a guild member, Liz, who goes to Disney 3-4 times a year. The more we talked about the things we wanted to do, the more we explored resort properties, the more confusing the options became. It seems, with Disney, why have 5 options when you can have 45. Liz suggested we should look into Disney travel agent. Enter Hollie. She is paid by Disney so even if we don't have a huge number of people coming along or, if it was just me, she would still be paid to help with a trip. She helped me price out a vacation and, at the July meet-up, I gave a presentation.

The one thing we needed to decide was when did we want to go. The cheap time is January, the week after New Year's through the end of February. But, if we want to spend a bit more, we could go in March, when the Flower and Garden Festival is, or go in October, when the Food and Wine Festival AND Halloween run concurrently. Well, when presented with these options, it became a decision about how fast you could save the money and we decided October of 2017 was the best time.

The big attraction is the two festivals going on at the same time. You know that Disney will do Halloween fantastic. When I went to BlizzCon last year, Halloween was only at the Haunted Mansion. Christmas hadn't quite wandered in but Halloween had wandered out. We will be going at the height of the holiday. It's going to be exciting to see the decorations.  We're going to do Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. Rides. Trick or Treat. A special parade and fireworks and the Magic Kingdom all to ourselves and anyone else who buys a ticket to the party.

And then there is the Food and Wine Festival.

Located at Epcot World Showcases, this is a celebration of food. The World Showcase part of Epcot is my favorite place at Disney World. Even with a lot of people in that section of the park, it is peaceful. I love to wander through all the countries and see what they have to offer.

During the festival, each country has food carts and special food indicative of their culture.

Having been to Disney World 4 times, one of the things I've wanted to do is "Eat Around the World", stop at each country and eat something at each country. With the festival going on in October, I can do this just by eating at the food carts stationed around the lagoon.

It took the summer to figure everything out on what I thought I would want. Hollie and I met in mid-September to go over possibilities, and, after looking at everything, she gave me a price and I put down a deposit. Now comes the saving.

I have to say I'm excited. A year ago, I was excited to go to BlizzCon. I spent a whole summer and most of a fall, saving for that trip, which included 2 days at Disneyland. This is going to be a whole week. I'm going with guild members; people I respect and whose company I relish. I'm going to be sharing a room with Liz. I admire and respect her and her company will make this that much more fun.

We will be going for a week in the middle of October. We looked at going as a group, but the group discounts didn't amount to much and Hollie said there are usually always discounts on things which we wouldn't be able to take advantage of if we're a group. So, we picked the days and then let everyone decide where they wanted to stay and what kinds of additions to their vacation they wanted.

In case you are wondering, WDW shut down this month for only the 7th time since opening, due to Hurricane Matthew. People who couldn't use tickets for events slated for Thursday night through Saturday morning, received compensation and/or had their tickets rescheduled for other days. The price of the resorts in October is one step above the base rate and two steps down from "We're going tomorrow and it's Christmas" rate. We were told this is primarily because October still has the potential for hurricanes raining, literally, on your parade. I told guild members Hurricane Matthew is a good example of why trip insurance is a very good idea.

Liz and I are going to stay at the Port of Orleans, French Quarter resort.

It's a moderately priced resort and the theme is New Orleans French Quarter area; heavy on the jazz. I can't wait. They serve beignets at the cafe in the main building.

They won't be the Mickey beignets that the restaurant in the French Quarter of the Magic Kingdom at Disneyland had, but, beignets!

I've needed to make some decisions with regards to what we're going to do so people can plan. I'm arriving on a Saturday, so I've decided my "Eat Around the World" at World Showcase can start then. Liz assures me there will be ample credits from the middle priced food plan and I will be scrambling on the last day to use them up. I remain unconvinced, but, several of us are going to Epcot and will take turns buying snack items to share. I'm planning for needing cash for meals.

We're going to the Halloween party on Sunday evening, to give people a chance to get to WDW. A Halloween party ticket acts like park admission so we can go to the Magic Kingdom as early as 4 pm and get in. Costumes are encouraged, within reason, so we'll have to see what we can do about that. Eighty percent of the rides are open so I expect to cross most of my "must ride" off the list then.

I want a Character Breakfast and a final meal. Those were things I felt were important to me. What people did with the guild wasn't as important as those two things, such as going to the same parks or eating at the same restaurant. But people were coming in and leaving on different days so trying to schedule within those constraints was hard. I finally decided, as guild leader, I could pick the dates we'll go, as a guild, to breakfast and dinner and then hope that people can fit those things into their schedule. I also made the decision on where we're going to eat breakfast. Guild members decided they really wanted Goofy at our breakfast so I've settled on the Tusker House in Animal Kingdom on Monday. Look! Goofy!

Dinner is going to be a majority vote decision. Liz and I have looked at a wide variety of places. We're going to pick 4 and offer them to the group, with plusses and minuses for each place. Then, we'll let the group decide and that's where we'll go. We're going to do that on Friday night. I leave a week after arriving.

Also in my sights are a foot and leg massage, a Steam Train Tour, a fireworks cruise and game night on Wednesday night, where everyone will come to the French Quarter, if they aren't already staying there, and we'll play games. My feeling is that it's their money and outside of a few suggested things, they should spend it however they want. They don't have to come to anything I arrange. I hope they do, but it's not required. I feel requiring things takes all the fun out a special vacation like this. Ben and Natalie are engaged and may use this as their honeymoon. If they do, we have plans, oh boy. Wendy is going to rent a scooter as she has an issue walking a lot and you will walk, a lot. We've already decided to trick out her scooter.

So, that's the current savings goal. It's been kind of an expensive year so I'm very glad we decided to do this in October of next year. It's going to be such a fun time.

Beverage:  Cookies and Cream hot cocoa

Deb

Gaming

Can't go to Carole's without playing games.

It started with the creation of a "Corn Hole". I looked at Larry. "A what?" I asked. "A Corn Hole," he replied, as if telling me again would make me understand it better. Out to the garage we went.

Once I saw these, I knew what they were for. We would call the whole thing a "Bean Bag Toss" set up. The object of the game is to toss a bag full of beans or, in this area of the country, dried corn kernels, into the hole from a distance. You get 3 points for getting the bag through the hole, 2 points for getting the bag on the top quarter, near the hole, and 1 point for getting the bag on the bottom of the ramp.

Larry had seen these at a store but they wanted an exorbitant amount of money for them. So he and his dad built their own.

The rectangle has two feet at the top which fold out to give the piece its slant.

This one was a little wobbly on the driveway, but once in the back yard, it was fine. My job was to paint chalkboard paint onto the top so topical items can be drawn or written on the face. It was warm on Friday morning when I did this.

Larry didn't want the sides or the interior of the hole to be be painted so there was blue painter's tape to edge those areas. I could not get the blue tape to stick to the sides. It worked for a bit with the interior of the hole, but I gave up on the one and just did my best to not have it drip. This was the first coat. It took a bit of mixing to get the paint to come out evenly.

Ultimately, it took three coats to get an even surface. I brought sidewalk chalk along but that was too hard for the surface and I had to paint over the markings. You need to use chalkboard chalk on this paint. The can recommends a drying time of 24-hours so I painted this on Friday as we were going to use them at the 3rd Annual Spectacular Death Guild Meet-up, held on Saturday. By Saturday, they were ready to go.

In this blurry photo of Larry and Luke, we had a great time playing "Corn Hole".

It was hot and humid so we wound up not using these as much as I think we would have had the humidity not been so oppressive. The chalk markings erased very easily. When the bean bags would land on the ramp, they would erase the chalk.

Late Saturday night, we played Cards Against Humanity.

On Monday evening, we blocked off the whole evening and played three games. First up was Star Trek Catan.

It took me a little bit to remember how to play Settlers of Catan, but once I remembered, this plays exactly like Settlers. Your pieces are the Enterprise space ship and Federation space stations. Carole won this.

Next up, we played Ascension.

I'm not one to enjoy card games where you have strategies utilizing various cards. Magic: The Gathering and Blizzard's Hearthstone card game are like that. Ascension is similar but it's easier for people like me to figure out. It was fun. It might be something I'd enjoy doing on a regular basis. Larry and I played Pirate Munchkin on Sunday afternoon. I do like that game, mainly because the cards are hilarious. I believe Larry won this round of Ascension.

Carole said there is an Ascension app for smart phones. She spends a lot of time playing the game on her phone. I looked at my smart phone and shook my head. I use my phone to make and receive calls, occasionally check the weather and find mapping routes, and as an alarm clock when one is not available. Play games on it? I don't think so.

We ended the night with my favorite game, Trivial Pursuit.

This was the newest version, the one Larry gave Carole for Christmas. Mom joined us and we played the fast way where you got a pie piece when you answered a question correctly. I won. I'd been stumped by the green Science and Nature category so they thought that was a good one to give me at the end. My question? "What kind of dog was Lassie?" I thought, at first, Larry, who was giving me questions, was joking. I was really expecting something along the lines of "Name one of the nobel gasses." I'd have had to actually think about that. It was kind of disappointing to win on what, to me, was a hugely easy question. Oh well, it was still fun.

I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons online with a group of friends since May. I just added a table top Dungeons and Dragons event which may play as much as twice a month, but right now, we're looking at just once a month. Years ago, bi-monthly gaming dates with friends was a part of my life. Games are a way to connect and have fun. It's slowly coming back into my life and I couldn't be happier.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Mom's 80th Birthday

If everyone invited had come, we'd have had 54 people in the basement of the dentist's office in Center Point. As it was, 32 people attended. It was entirely family, but that's the way mom wanted it. It was enough to get her to agree to being recognized in the first place so if the only people she wanted to invite were family, that's who got invitations.

Toward the middle of the open house, we set fire to one of the cheesecakes and made mom blow it out.

The oldest great-granddaughter gave mom a wand and a crown.

Toward the end of the event, we had to take the obligatory photos. There's us kids.

It took a little convincing, but grandma wore her birthday crown. Here are my brothers and their spouses.

Then there are the great-grandchildren. My oldest niece, Christina, gave birth to her 5th child, Adalynn, the day before the party, so she wasn't in attendance, although my brother brought the other kids.

My other niece, Amber, came with her husband and daughter. We count Mary's two kids, on the right, as part of the family, too.

Once this was done, it was time for the extended family. Probably one of the best reasons to have a party like this is that you get to see the cousins you grew up with.

We spent a lot of time remembering the big family gatherings we used to have. Our 4th of July celebrations were originally at Ken and Effie's farm. But, when my mom's generation started having children, the sheer number of people running around proved to be too much to host, so we moved to the city park. I have just a couple of memories of July 4th on the farm; fireworks set off in the corn field by my great-uncles and ice cold Nehi soda pulled from a steel cow trough full of ice. There are far more memories of the time at the park and then going to the Monona city fireworks display.

We talked about our genealogy, what we knew. Of course, we regret that we didn't ask our parents more questions when they were alive. My dad had 6 siblings. Only the oldest is still alive and she has dementia. Of the 6 spouses, only 3; mom and Aunts Dorothy and Audrey; are still alive. We cousins know a lot and it was wonderful to share things, but there are things we will never know. That is, perhaps, the nature of existence.

Here is mom and Aunt Dorothy. I swear. Aunt Dorothy simply hasn't aged. She looks just like I remember her in my youth. She just laughs when you say that to her, but it's sure the truth. Some people have really good genes.

Once we got home, got things put away, food frozen and could sit, mom allowed that this had been fun. It was nice to see her as the center of attention.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

But I Don't Want a Party

When we all got together at Christmas, my sister brought up the fact that mom would turn 80 in April. She felt it was important to recognize this event with a party. Mom is the type of person who doesn't like a fuss being made over her. The idea of a party (gasp) in her honor (double gasp) just wasn't to her liking. She had mentioned to me over a year ago, that she would just prefer the whole birthday pass without notice. Sharyn, however, is sort of a force to be reckoned with.

I couldn't help. First of all, work was consuming days and weeks. We remain intensely busy and my having to make decisions, find things, send out invitations or other things just wasn't something I was going to be able to do in a timely fashion. Second, but most importantly, I had a wedding to attend. This wedding was going to occur 2 weeks before the weekend set for Mom's birthday party. The best I could do was assist when I got to Iowa and do some light tasks from Illinois. That was fine. My sister took over.

She picked the food and helped mom find places that would make it. She sent out the invitations and was the point of contact for RSVP's. She coordinated with mom's husband, Dale's, family for what they offered to bring. She arrived a week before everything was to happen and made sure we had all the supplies.

Sharyn, my brother's fiancee, Mary, and I made cheesecakes.

I made a lightly lemon-flavored cheesecake with blueberry topping.

There was a plain and a plain with cherry topped cheesecake. Mary made chocolate and mocha and caramel cheesecake bars. If there's one thing we do well, it's dessert.

We had sloppy joes (or Maid Rites, depending upon which part of Iowa you're from) and beans. Farther down the table were veggies, fruit salad and chips.

We rented the basement of a local dentist's office. It was the perfect size for our gathering. Decorations were simple.

Sharyn found everything at the dollar store.

One of Dale's daughters-in-law, Amy, made bouquets for the tables.

and

With five tables, we had 10 bouquets so I brought a couple back with me.

The sunlight on the daffodils just made them sparkle. I took the daffodils to work but kept the daisies at home.

Daisies are such hardy flowers. These lasted for 3 weeks with regular changes of water.

One of the cool things was this slide show of mom done on mom's mac. Sharyn scanned in a wide variety of photos and added them to the packaged music in the program. I printed some photos from Carole and Larry's wedding and we found a few photos of the cousins to add to the table.  (Carole and Larry were starting their honeymoon cruise to the Caribbean so weren't able to come.) There was a bag for cards. Mom had requested no gifts, a request some of us ignored. There was also a letter from an aunt who lives in California. It didn't take us long to set up and we were ready for relatives.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

There Was a Wedding - Part 8 - The Reception

While the formal act of becoming Mr and Mrs is important, let's be honest. The real reason we have a wedding is to party. We dress up, many of us in clothing we'll never wear again. We eat. We drink. We laugh. We dance. We don't look down on someone on the dance floor because they are celebrating. When we look back on a wedding, we don't remember the first sight of the bride walking down the aisle, or the vows the couple may have written themselves. We remember the food and who was sitting at our table. We remember the DJ and the line dance. The reception is what we remember.

After being dismissed from photos, mom and I came back inside to find our tables. Star Wars featured prominently here.

Everyone received a shot glass with "Larry and CJ, 3-21-15" on it. On the top of the box was your name and your table.

Perhaps someone can clarify something for me. At what point did it become necessary to give guests something to take home with them, beyond memories, full stomachs and the program from the ceremony? When I married, back in the dark ages, the idea that guests got anything other than sincere thanks for showing up was preposterous. Now, it seems that if guests don't have something to take home, they are offended. It's an added cost to the couple. I just wonder when things shifted. I will treasure the shot glass forever, but I wonder how many were left on the table.

I got mom situated and went to find my guild mates from World of Warcraft.

Doo, Jon and Becky have been friends with me since 2009. Jon and Becky have hosted the last two guild meet-ups when I come east to see Carole and Doo has come to both of them. Larry had friends from his World of Warcraft guild in attendance, too. We did not know who they were until photos were posted. We could have joined forces to have an epic "raid" of the dance floor, or something, during the reception.

We were lined up, once the photos were done, and then introduced. We had to walk diagonally across the dance floor, which occupied the place where the ceremony had been held. I went first.

Funny story:  when I was wandering about the assembly, saying "hello" to the friends of Carole's who had made it out for the wedding, I was stopped by a lady who mentioned how wonderful it was to meet me. I had no idea who this woman was. She called me by a name which, when repeated to Larry, was that of a friend of his family. I realized she had mistaken me for someone else so I just patted her hand and said we'd chat later. She should come to my table. Then I had to go get in line for the introductions.

I''m sure when I was introduced as "Deb Montague, mother of the bride", she realized I was not the person she thought I was. I never saw her again.

Carole's father and his wife were introduced. Larry's parents came next followed by the attendants. Then came "the new Mr and Mrs Larry Kevin Oliver, Jr".

They entered to the triumphant march at the end of the very first Star Wars movie, where Luke, Han and Chewie get their medals. Again, people cheered their approval.

Sandy's fiancee, Jerry, on the left above, gave a heart-felt blessing and we were allowed to eat. I didn't take photos of the food. I probably should have. It was amazing. There was a spinach salad, rice, rolls, asparagus, salmon and thin sliced roast beef. The best part was the mashed potato bar.

You could get regular or sweet potato mash and there were 8 different toppings to put on your potatoes. When Carole was telling me of the menu, she kept coming back to "and they have a mashed potato bar, mom". Yes, this was a highlight of an already great menu.

Once most people had finished eating, it was time for the first dance.

They danced to "Thinking Out Loud" by Ed Sheeran. This song seemed to exemplify their relationship. In the previous event, there was a small battle over the first dance song. The compromise was "At Last" by Etta James. It's not a bad first dance song, but Carole said she regretted that they couldn't agree on one song that meant something to each of them; that they had to 'settle' for a song they could agree on. This was never an issue with Larry. Active in the planning of the wedding and not leaving every decision to Carole only to pick it apart later, he enthusiastically embraced this song. It talks about finding someone in the most improbable of circumstances, how love shows up "right where we are". Like the dress and the venue and the weather, it was just another bit of perfection in an otherwise perfect day.

There was quite a bit of dancing including a line dance. I watched this done at the previous event. It includes the line, "How low can you go?"

No. I did not participate in this.

Half-way through the dancing, it was time to cut the cake.

It was an amazing cake.

I think that's ganache with fondant shaped into Star Wars ships. Carole said when they went to the bakery for their tasting, they took along some photos of Star Wars cakes they had seen on the internet. They described what they wanted and one of the bakers sketched as they talked. The first design is what they liked best.

Each layer was different.

The piece I got had raspberry filling. The big bottom layer was Boston Creme Pie.

I forget the name of the bakery. I asked if they set aside the top layer, as is custom. Carole laughed. "Nope. It was eaten. The bakery gave us a coupon to come back in for our first anniversary to get a small cake. Their reason is 'who wants to eat a cake that's been frozen for a year'?" Yeah, that's a sound reason.

Once the cake was cut, it was back to the dance floor.  Toward the end of the evening, the DJ cranked up "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Well, that's quite the unconventional music for a dance, but we were urged to come out on the dance floor and sing along. We made a "U" shape and the DJ handed the microphone to Carole. She sang a couple of lines and passed it to Larry.

Everyone took their turn singing one or two lines of this well-known rock anthem.  In the middle, there is a Brian May guitar solo. That was Larry's cue.

He and usher Jeff engaged in an epic air guitar "battle". We declared it a tie, which was the honorable thing to do.

After this, people started to go home. The event was winding down. One of the last group things we did before it was time to pack everything up was to make a big circle and sing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline".

We even got my mom out there. I don't remember if she sang along, but that wasn't really the point. The point was that we were all together, arm-in-arm, singing loudly and celebrating Carole and Larry's marriage.

After this, there were a couple more songs and we began to clean up the hall. There were "Goodbyes" and hugs and a few final quick photos.

Wedding gifts went one way. Mom and I took some of the things which needed to be returned to the florist as well as quite a few things from the dressing room and Carole's flowers. Then we headed back to the house for a well deserved night's sleep.

Funny story:  The top candle in the big center glass at our table was not lit when we sat down. This bothered Becky so much, she fished it out of the container, lit it by holding it over one of the side candles and dropped it back into the water. I have to admit, having that candle lighted did add to the decoration on the table.

It had been a wonderful day.

Beverage:  Ginger Ale

Deb