Busy couple of weeks- continued...

Ok, talked about mens weekend (check), taxes and going to Disney World (check), ENT appt (check), Mike and Amy's wedding (check), so I have my Great Banquet weekend and swim lessons left I think...

Great Banquet was an awesome, awesome weekend. :) We went and worked on set up of the kitchen on Wednesday night and then went on Thursday evening to set up the send off food. We then stayed and the weekend kicked off! I'd love to share everything that happened on the weekend, but I know that friends and family that may go through this at some point are reading, so I have to curtail what I put here...

Overall, the meals all went good, we were well organized and Sharon, my team leader did an awesome job of planning out the food quantities. We all worked together to choose really simple to fix, easy meals that still looked classy and were really yummy! We didnt hear many complaints about the food itself! :) We all worked pretty well together for the most part, though we were getting tired and cranky by the time the weekend was over.

We had a blast doing a fashion show for the group as well, which we all wore our costumes of alternate meaning. I was a model that wore a "straw hat, brightly colored tube top, tennis shorts" and accented my outfit with a "doggie bag". We put together a costume of a baseball cap COVERED in drinking straws, a top made of tubes of brightly colored construction paper tubes strung on string, and then I wore black shorts with a belt on that had tennis balls strung on string with rectangles of green indoor/outdoor carpet between them to keep them spaced out. I then work some lovely flip flops to go with things as well. :D I also had my lovely doggie bag of brightly colored gift sack over Honey, which the whole costume was met with a huge roar of laughter. :)

Honey did awesome through the whole weekend and we had comments throughout the weekend of how good she was and quiet she was. We had curtains set up at one end of the dining hall to block the view from the kitchen, so I had brought Honey's bean bag bed and laid it along the wall, outside the kitchen, where I could easily go out the kitchen door and check on her. She was out of the way but not by herself all the time too. She did awesome as I'd tell her to lay down and stay and unless she had to go potty (which we had a couple of emergency runs since she had the runs all weekend :( for some reason) she stayed put with amazing obedience! When there wasn't hardly anyone around and as we were setting the tables for the next meal, we'd shut the dining room doors and let her roam around, which she was very good as I told her to stay out of the kitchen and she did surprisingly. The only times she was in the kitchen the whole weekend was as we'd go through when I took her out to break.

She made a lot of friends this weekend, as various community members came and asked if they could pet her and such and I told them yes, since all she did was laid most of the day. She loved having the attention and so forth. A couple of them offerened to take her for a long walk around the church grounds, which I let them do, so she at least got to stretch her legs a bit. I did put her in harness and take her to the table with me as we sat down and ate at each meal with the group, while the community and volunteers served the foods we'd prepared for 80 people. I also used Honey going upstairs for the fashion show and for the few errands we ran, and sometimes back and forth to the bathroom if she hadn't been up in a bit.

Then we came to the saturday night service, which involved a lot of the community and such. She didnt do so hot going through the people, as she saw all these people that had been loving on her and taking her out all weekend. I was unable to see anything, as it was dark and that caused me real issues in commanding her, as I'd never truly been in this situation yet with her, of not being able to see and amongst a TON of people. So needless to say, we bopped from person to person, though they all did what they were supposed to, as it'd been announced ahead of time to not pet her, as she'd be working. I got really frustrated and at one point kind of panicked as I was unalble to distinguish which direction I needed to be heading. I knew though that I was no longer behind the person I'd started out behind (turns out we passed two people! LOL!) and I put my right hand out and the community started to help me by gently taking my hand and guiding me forward. I then caught up to the next person that was in front of me and I was able to see a reflection off an item she was wearing, so I was able to follow that to the end of the line. So my petting policy kinda backfired with Honey kind of backfired there, but overall I was happy with how well behaved she was the whole weekend.

She did awesome at night too, as I put her bean bag bed next to my air bed and she slept in the bed all night too, though the kitchen team did say she snored once and must have been dreaming one night, as she was whimpering in her sleep and then they saw her feet moving like she was running. LOL! Then the last night, poor Sharon, she got up to go to the bathroom and almost fell over Honey! Honey for some reason decided to lay at the foot of my bed instead of in her bed, but she never moved, so it wasnt until Sharon opened the door completely and the light from the dining hall flooded in that she saw what it was she almost fell over! She had thought it was something one of us had left on the floor!

But all in all, the weekend was great, Honey did great, and was such a blessing and touched many of the guests that were present. :) I was told they wanted to give her a cross too, but not sure what was up with that. We'll see if that comes to fruition or not, if not thats fine.:) Honey did receive a note though in our letters bag too! Which was pretty cool! We came home Sunday night, exhausted, tired, feet throbbing, bach aching, but it was all worth it after hearing the testimonies of the ladies that had been guests for the weekend. :) I did sleep though most of the day on Monday! LOL! And I've taken a couple of naps with Alex this week in still recovering....