Greetings Everyone,
Saturday, December 31, started early with wake-up calls at 5:00 A.M. What a way to start the last day of the year!! It was still so very dark and very foggy. We had a quick breakfast set out especially for our group at the Residence Inn since we were leaving so early, short devotions and left the motel at 6:00 for the Rose Palace on special assignment. One of the float judging events is judging the workers and how well the crew chiefs are using their volunteers. The IOWAY group was chosen to come early to be the workers for this judging before the rest of the shift workers reported for duty.
After an hour’s drive, all five IOWAY vehicles rolled in right on time and reported at 7:00 A.M. We were disbursed to various floats and put to work. The judges arrived shortly afterwards to begin their first look at the floats. Final judging is when the floats are finished tomorrow. We had a long day because of the early start but so much was accomplished and the floats are progressing nicely. The shift that followed us will finish them for judging tomorrow morning. We left the Rose Palace at 3:00 but before we left, we took a group photo by the Lutheran Hour Float. The scaffolding had been removed and the float looks so great!
Today we did a great number of interesting jobs. My jobs included crawling up onto the City of Los Angeles Float with a can of white glue, a box of celery seed and a sponge. The legs of one of the dinosaurs on the float is covered with celery seed and I touched up and finished any bare spots I found. Later, Jennifer, the crew chief of the Lutheran Hour Float asked me to take a crew and bring over 2,000 pink roses, hot pink roses, and two colors of Gerber daisies to the float. Many people from our group spent the next hours adding them to the float. Everyone did an awesome job arranging. Some put evergreen boughs around the float and some added asparagus fern greenery. A number of others worked all day petaling, a very tedious process where you glue individual overlapping carnation petals onto a surface. Some worked on large rose forms that will be added around the bottom of the float and others worked on the sign on the float, covering each 3-D word with overlapping carnation petals.
Other tasks our group did today on various floats included adding carnations, blowing into roses to ‘fluff’ them before installation, cleaning float surfaces of spilled seeds by blowing them clear, gluing bark on trees, carrying huge flats of roses and other flowers from the flower tent, getting dry materials from the seed tent, arranging moss, gluing rice, flax seed and tiny peas onto float surfaces. Popping carnation heads from their stems was another activity today. TV stations are sending reporters to report on the progress in each building. Lois had her hands photographed close up while she worked on a detailed project and Pat and Delores were interviewed by KXNO TV.
When we left work we drove to the Soup Plantation in Pasadena for our evening meal, a wonderful place to eat. Then we journeyed the hour back to our ‘home area’ and went to the $.99 Store to purchase personal care items for the homeless who we will be serving on January 3rd. 27 crazy Iowans, wound up after a fantastic day of excitement and all wearing matching sweatshirts, created quite a stir in the store! Can you visualize over $755 of soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, razors, etc. in shopping carts with each item costing just $.99? With our tons of stuff in toe, we headed back to the hotel for assembling the health kits, devotions and sharing time. Joe Mitchell, one of the main members from Christ Lutheran Church surprised us with a visit while we were meeting. His church is a Nehemiah church where Ellie and the gang work during the summer mission adventure.
We
finished our evening by toasting each other for the new year with sparkling
grape juice and headed to our rooms exhausted!
I doubt very many will stay up to see the new year arrive. In the morning we are up early again heading
for the other building, Rosemont, where floats will not be finished until later
in the day so there will be work to do for our group. It should be another very exciting day to see
the floats drive out of the building and see their animation begin to work for
the first time.
There you have it, a brief summary of the happenings of the IOWAY group on the last day of 2011.
God’s Blessings and Happy New Year,
Lynn Menz
from Ellie: I received a call this evening from Ardie, a friend who we work with each summer at Christ Lutheran Church. He shared that his grandmother had died a few minutes earlier. Please pray for Ardie and his sister Andrea. Their grandmother raised them. I suggest that those of you reading this who know Ardie and have worked with Ardie and Andrea at Christ Lutheran write or contact them. The IOWAY group is very important to them.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!
There you have it, a brief summary of the happenings of the IOWAY group on the last day of 2011.
God’s Blessings and Happy New Year,
Lynn Menz
from Ellie: I received a call this evening from Ardie, a friend who we work with each summer at Christ Lutheran Church. He shared that his grandmother had died a few minutes earlier. Please pray for Ardie and his sister Andrea. Their grandmother raised them. I suggest that those of you reading this who know Ardie and have worked with Ardie and Andrea at Christ Lutheran write or contact them. The IOWAY group is very important to them.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!
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