Lasting Memories

Leaving for Germany tomorrow

I know I have disappeared for weeks.  Erin got married here in the states a couple of weeks ago.  I can't believe that I do not have any pictures.  We are waiting for the proofs from our photographer so that I can put some pictures on the blog.  Anyway Robin and Erin returned to Germany the day after the wedding and they are having their wedding reception there,  AND we are going!

Lee and I are not world travelers, so we are just a little nervous about our trip tomorrow, but everything is planned and packed and we couldn't be more ready.  We are taking Erin brown sugar, vanilla and macaroni and cheese.  Little things that she misses and cannot get in Germany.  We are also taking the ingredients for the punch for her reception - things like lemon extract and citric acid. 

Our bags are stuffed with the oddest things.  I have Pamela's mix and bags of pizza dough and rolls, just in case I want to eat bread in Germany.  I have ordered a gluten free meal from our airline and then prepared 24 hours worth of food in case something happens to my gluten free meal.  Our carry on bags have all the things that Erin didn't have room for the last time she went to Germany.  Its going to be a relief to come home with just a few souveniers and leave all this stuff with her. 

Erin has been sharing what life is like as a new bride in Germany on her blog.  Take a look.

When we get home we will have lots of pictures of the wedding reception and Germany and then I will get back to my real life and start scrapbooking!

Good Friends

We have been so fortunate to have so many wonderful people help us with Erin's wedding.  My niece did the photography. (She is so talented.  It's Amazing).  Erin's good friend Alanna Melara made her wedding cake. One of my sisters made the favors and another sister organized and planned the whole reception. 

 My sisters in laws, the Neilsons, let us use their beautiful yard in Draper for the reception.  Their yard was perfect.  It was shaded, with a little breeze so it wasn't to hot.  It was huge, and it had a wonderful play area for the kids.  It kept them busy and occupied so that the adults could visit.  It could not have been better.

We can hardly believe how kind everyone was.  Erin and Robin's  special day was long and exhausting - but absolutely beautiful.

  

I Won!!! I Won!!!

Last January at CHA Making Memories announced their Slice Hands Free Contest.  A consumer could win a Vespa and the store owner that they purchased their hands free at would win one too.  Well guess what?  We won!!!  Click Here to see the Making Memories Blog entry.  I am so excited!!!  I can't ever remember winning something BIG before.  Jenny from Making Memories called this morning to confirm, but I have been getting emails from store friends since yesterday afternoon. 

Here are photos of me at CHA trying out the Vespa.  You can see that it's just perfect for me. 

 

This is me listening to them explaining how this pink Vespa can come home with me.  Notice how intently I am paying attention.  We sold close to 100 hands free units the month before we closed the store.  I guess that gave Lasting Memores plenty of chances to win. 

Congratulations to Sara Allen who also won.  She told me that she purchased her hands free before she even bought her Slice.  
 

Family Time - Wedding Time

I have two sisters who live in Utah, but I was lucky enough to have lots of family travel to attend Erin's wedding.  The Utah sisters usually have a family picnic on July 4th.  Since so many of us were there for the wedding, we got to join the family festivities.  One of the fun things my sisters and nieces do is rent a inflatable water slide. 

 
 

Everyone from youngest to oldest loved the water slide.  It was so hot it was just the right thing to keep everyone busy and cool.
 
Here I am with my youngest granddaughter, Hannah.  She still has lots of hair.
   
  
   

Next Project - Erin's Wedding

Erin's wedding is going to be in Utah at the temple in Bountiful.   

She has been living and working in Utah since her mission and she felt that many of her friends were there and it was centrally located for much of our family.

This is the longest distance wedding that we have put on to date.  I flew to Utah about 3 weeks before the big day.  My sister is helping us with the reception and so I moved in to her house.  She has 3 children and is expecting her 4th and so it was really nice of them to put up with house guests for so long.

This is Mary, my niece, who is playing with stickers that her Aunt Jennifer brought.

Erin arrived about two weeks before the wedding and the three Erin, my sister Katie and I) of us got really busy finalizing details.

     
 

Lee, Megan and Janna drove down a week before the wedding to build a structure as a back drop behind the food table.  It was so nice to see Lee again, we hadn't seen each other for 3 weeks, but we didn't get much time together.  The whole family was gathering for wedding festivities.

Life after Lasting Memories pt. 3

I finished Erin's wedding invitations while I was visiting my parents in California.  It seemed like such a simple project in theory.  It ended up being a lot bigger project than I planned on, so when I threw them all in the mail, I was glad to see them go.

We left Placerville and drove over to the California coast.  We decided to start practicing slowing down and planned to take several days enjoying the coast.  A bishop at church told Lee and I several years ago that we really needed to slow down and watch some sunsets.  We agreed with him, but could not seem to ever find the time, so this trip we really concentrated on looking at sunsets.  The weather did not always co-operate, though.

If we were enjoying ourselves someplace, we stayed longer.  What a foreign concept.

Life after Lasting Memories pt. 2

As soon as the store closed Lee and I felt like we needed a little break before we cleaned everything up and turned the keys back over to our landlord, so we hopped in the car for a road trip to California.  My parents have a beautiful home in Northern California where I grew up.  My parents moved into a smaller home just the week before we arrived and we spent time with them hanging pictures at their new house and installing smoke alarms.  We kept the old farmhouse style house in the family, my sister was moving in as we were visiting them.  Lee and I enjoyed some time thinking in that garden.  My sister mentioned that when she was visiting my parents she only saw the flowers in the garden, now that she lives there she only sees the weeds.  I did spend a few hours helping to pull the weeds.  It's so theraputic to just pull weeds and think.

 
 
  

Life after Lasting Memories part 1

There is no rest for the busy.  Erin's wedding is coming up quick and I volunteered to make her invitations.  I have begun to wonder what was I thinking?  These invitations have so many steps to them.  It helps that they are beautiful, when I get tired of cutting, gluing and stuffing I can just look at them and think "Oh so pretty" and then I can keep going. 

Don't let the tape runner on the counter fool you, I glued these invitations together with mono-multi glue.  The tape runner wasn't strong enough to hold the pocket together and I hated to glue them multiple times. 

Just a piece of trivia - we sold almost 1,200 bottle of tombo mono-multi glue during our big sale.

It's not a suprise to everyone working at Lasting Memories - mono is our favorite glue.  It holds better than anything else.  I brought home a couple of cases myself.  Now I have used up three bottles on these invitations.  AndI am afraid that I might not have enough to last. 

Thank You to Everyone

We closed the doors of Lasting Memories forever last week.  Lee and I wanted to thank all of the really nice people that came in during the final closing days to thank us and bring us treats.  I have just a  little glimpse of what it is like to die and have everyone tell good things about you at your funeral.  Because we are going away - it's almost like a death.  I even got flowers - I just love flowers.  It was so nice to have everyone be so thoughtful.  So many people had kind things to say.  While we were still planning Lasting Memories, 14 years ago, we had a vision of what we hoped that it would accomplish.  Judging from the comments of so many of you, our vision has come to fruition.  So many of you have scrapbooks because of something we did to inspire you.  Don't stop now.  Keep on Scrapbooking!

 

We  

Thanks for the Memories!

Tuesday we officially closed our doors at 3:00pm. Thank you to everyone who came by during the sale. We had a little birthday party for Tina after we closed, and we felt so bad for all the customers who kept coming and trying to open the locked doors that we decided to make it a little more obvious that we were closed for good. So we posted a huge "CLOSED" sign on the outside of the storefront. Then we couldn't resist adding stickers and journaling. What can we say--once a scrapbooker, always a scrapbooker! 

Thanks for 14 wonderful years!

Love,

Jennifer, Lee, and the Lasting Memories Staff